MY BIKE WEEK ADVENTURE by Kurt Lucas
Photo by Tyler Miller
For the first time in forever I decided to actually compete in some events for this year’s Daytona Bike Week. The events were the Wild Boar GNCC at Hog Waller, the Daytona Vintage Supercross and the Alligator Sprint Enduro. I’m not sure why this decision was made, but it sure did seem like a good idea at the time. The Friday before the Daytona Supercross I loaded up my Ford Transit with my KTM 350, KX 500 and street bike, and by street bike I mean a Yamaha Zuma moped and headed for Daytona. After a night of experience the sights and sounds of Main Street we headed into Daytona International Speedway to watch some Supercross
that Saturday. Immediately after Supercross I headed back to the camper to get some sleep before my first event of the week, the Wild Boar GNCC in Palatka where I would be racing the Junior 25+ A/B class. A few weeks prior to bike week I began to spend a lot of time at Croom Motorcycle Park, riding hours of sand whoops in preparation for the Wild Boar GNCC. Turns out nothing can prepare you for the torture of the afternoon race at a Florida GNCC. I have never seen sand whoops so big, and this was on the first lap! I immediately knew that I would be in for a long three hours. I actually decided to do the opposite of what I would normally do in a FTR Hare Scramble and conserve my energy on the first two laps.
FLORIDA TRAIL RIDERS
This proved to be a smart decision as the track began to fall apart at the halfway mark. The mud sections turned into soup, the sand whoops were so dug out that they reached the water table and formed puddles in between each other, and the breaking bumps were getting sharp.
