Just got back in the office from spending Thanksgiving weekend in Tulsa for the ABA Grand Nationals. Heading into the Grands, Nic Long was sitting in 4th with Khalen back in 6th in year end points. Thanksgiving day was practice where the track showed to be pretty wide open, with a pro section that was
way too short for the speed you had leading up to it. Plenty of guys got broke off landing flat bottom on the first one, but Nic and KY looked solid through practice. Friday was the Pro Spectacular and the Race of Champions. The Elite Men class had quarter finals which is a pretty big showing of riders. The boys breezed their way through qualifying and into the night show which ran in the evening in conjunction with the NAG 5 Challenge for the Amateurs. Nic and KY were in the same semi final come nightfall, and both were through the the main event when that was said and done. Khalen ended up blowing his start in the final, but Nic looked good and finished 3rd on the podium.Saturday was day 1 of the Grand National, a pretty mellow day only running two rounds of qualifying. After a rough first moto seeing Nic in 4th and Khalen in 5th at the line, they both came around and had a better second moto. Khalen woke up at 3am on Sunday morning to find the nice surprise of food poisoning and he spent the night hailing to the porcelain god and couldn't find it in his stomach to race 3rd moto at 8am, ending his weekend. Nic moved through qualifying and into his quarter where he won, and through his semi final in the top 4. Come main time, Nic finished up 5th, 4th, 4th which was good enough for 4th overall for the day, and 4th overall for the year. With Khalen finishing 7th on Friday night, it was good enough to overtake 5th place overall for the season. Good job boys.
In other weekend highlights, we gave Chance (below) a new bike. He came over to the pit area on Thursday and sat down like he owned the place. He had an old Haro from like 2003 and was full of 1000 questions, most of which were hilarious because he didn't know many BMX pros so listening to him ask Khalen and Nic over and over again, if they raced expert, was pretty entertaining. Chance hung out a lot during the weekend and I thought he was worthy of a new bike. Being only 8 years old, it was pretty clear that no matter how hard he wishes this Christmas, his two front teeth aren't going to make it in time so the new Haro Expert will have to fill the void until next year. Enjoy.
That's a wrap for the Grands. Now we all have December to freeze our ass off, enjoy family and friends, and get the 2011 season poppin' come January. Enjoy the Holidays -dB
