Southerntour2007

Bizzarro Racing Southern Tour 2007 Report

For the second year in a row the Bizzarro crew headed south for an extended racing trip. Dubbed the “Southern Tour” the trip has revolved around the ABA Dixieland National and the NBL Tanglewood National and whatever clinics and riding we can fit in between.This year’s tour was a marked success over last years trip, but was hindered by numerous injuries.

Our journey began Thursday May 17^th with myself, Nick St. Lawrence, Chris Decouto and Rennen’s George Costa. Our first stop was the airport in Atlanta, GA Friday to pick up Shawn DiPrete flying in from LA. After a quick practice session at the National track, checking in with team rider Ace Savarese up from Florida and some dinner it was back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep. At some point that night Michele Peters arrived at the hotel room after her drive up from Florida.

Huntersville's (NC) "public" pump track! Keller and Costa.

Saturday’s national was a frustrating one for the Intense/Bizzarro/JRA squad as our team sheet suffered two set backs in the main events. Diprete (28-35X) got passed at the line and Chris Meaker unclipped after having some awesome runs in 36 and over expert. Two seconds, a third and a fourth were good enough for second place in the Factory team division behind Track Stars. Knowing that Sun Bru had suffered some team sheet crashes, what track stars had for a final score and what we should have scored is what made for the frustration.
Sunday was a different story as we ran into more mistakes in the main events and were lucky to hold on to our third place finish in Factory team racing. Sunday’s racing ended with our first injury of the trip, in the last pro main Nick St. Lawrence went down hard in the first straight and separated his shoulder and tore up some tendons between the clavicle and sternum.
Once again in 2007, Bizzarro’s longest involved member, Tom Gonzales joined us in Atlanta, and then accompanied us to our Sunday evening clinic at PTC BMX in Peachtree City, GA. Shayne and Anthony Robinson had the track in great shape for out training session and Tom got a chance to get back on the track after a 20 year lay off, riding my cruiser for a few hours. He enjoyed it some much he ordered a new complete Intense bike and got some info from Anthony about area tracks.

Chris Meaker leads Saturday's 36 & Over Expert Main in Atlanta

Thomson's Kiddy trails in Macon, GA. Diprete "puts out the fire"

Monday found us in Macon Georgia, with the goal of meeting up with our Rep Dave Parrett at Thomson. Machining and engineering is actually a big interest among a few members of the tour crew, so aside from meeting Dave in person and thanking him for all his support, the tour of the plant was actually quite interesting. Our tour ended with Thomson’s own trails, and thus where our second trip injury occurred. Messing around on the kiddy jumps Shawn DiPrete “Put out the fire” and messed up his heal. We also needed some maintenance time with the trailer and used some shade to repack the wheel bearings.
Monday night we headed back up to Peachtree City for our own private cook out at the Robinson household! George gave Ty’s trails a quick session before sitting down for a few drinks and good meal.

"I race who ever is on the gate"

Tuesday we made the trek up to North Carolina and stopped off in Gastonia to ride the abandoned Sims Park track, which is actually in better shape then some of our tracks up here in the Northeast. After a late lunch break at Hooters it was off to Hornet’s Nest BMX in Charlotte for an early evening practice session. This was no normal practice, the NC crew have their act together and we had an intense 2 hour gate session with: Tim Dinger, Jason Sherrill, John “The Machine” Crossen, Chris Keller (who had just flown in from CT), Chris Meaker and Will Murray.

Wednesday saw the departure of the wounded, as DiPrete and St.Lawrence caught flights home. Along with a much needed Laundromat stop. Another cookout, this time at the Crossen residence and then it was off to Clemons for a private session at the Tanglewood track with Trey Mabe and Justin Posey. The track was in great shape and we were looking forward to the weekends racing. Back in Charlotte we put together a party of 8 for dinner and Meaker got to take his Porsche out for a spin.

One of the coolest machine's at the Thomson plant. It's a laser engraving machine, burning the Thomson logo into stem face plates.

Thursday we were taken to a rather unique public “pump track”. Considering the fact that it was open to the public and maintained under town ordnance, it was pretty darn cool. After some lunch and shopping for Pam we were off to Clemmons again for a clinic. 17 riders got taught for about three hours by one of the best cast of instructors we’ve gathered in a while. Decouto, Costa, Keller and Crossen and were joined again by Justin Possey, our own Kayla Gaddis along with Felt’s Tiffany Bontorno. All clinic participants received swag from PowerBar, Finish Line, Fly, THE and Cane Creek.
Having ridden the Tanglewood track for two days already Friday’s national practice session day was more of a work on bikes and relax day. George Costa went back down to Charlotte to ride Dinger’s trails with Keller and Crossen.

Rolling Thunder, Allen Currier blasting the berm jump at Tanglewood.

Saturday’s racing went well for most of the Bizzarro team. Decouto made his presence known with a win in 30-34x, Courtney Applewhite crushed the 15 girls class, while Austin Loebe dominated the 13-14 cruiser class. Meaker tossed in a 2^nd in 35+x and the sheet was decent 86, good enough for second place. In all the excitement some had failed to notice that George Costa had taken a hard fall in the 30-34x main and was at the EMT’s station awaiting an ambulance ride to Wake Forrest Baptist hospital. George was in surgery within 4 hours of the crash to repair a broken Femur, and had to stay a few extra days in NC before flying home to Massachusetts.

The Machine and his "street bike" -" Hey Meaker, be careful out there, cause I'm out there too ya know".

Sunday’s racing started with a trip over to Baptist to drop off some of George’s stuff and see how the surgery went. Racing was not as successful as Saturday, although Applewhite and Decouto were able to complete the weekend double, Meaker picked up a 3^rd in 35x and Ace Savarese was able to through in a 4^th in 13x. Somehow our bombed teamsheet still held on to another second place finish though (woo hoo!). We’ll take it anyway we can get it!

Gangsta

With the trips itinerary complete the two remaining trip members made the trek back to New England and completed the 2^nd annual “Southern Tour”. All injured riders are now on the road to recovery, some will be back sooner then others. We’d like to tank the following people for making our trip a great success: Anthony, Shayne and Ty Robinson, Tracey and John Crossen, Jack and Trey Mabe, Dave Parrett, Chris Meaker, Tim Dinger and of course “Big Head” Chris Keller who wants everyone to know that he is not juicin.

Next up for the team is a clinic at the Cape Cod (MA) BMX Redline qualifier race on June 9^th, followed by a June 16^th clinic at Billerica (MA) BMX. Followed by an ABA National in Charlotte, NC and then an NBL National in Trumbull CT. Bizzarro’s 4^th annual summer camp will take place July 9^th through the 12^th in Bethel. CT.

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