Junior Trail Boss for the Grand National Cross-Country Series - Jared Bolton

Dale Spangler:

Welcome to Pit Pass Moto, the show that keeps you up to speed on the latest in motorcycling and brings the biggest names in the motorcycle industry, right to you.

I'm Dale Spangler, and this week our guest is Jared Bolton, Junior Trail Boss for the Grand National Cross-Country Series, and member of the race operations team for parent company MX Sports.

This episode of Pit Pass Moto is brought to you by MotoAmerica. MotoAmerica's the home of AMA Superbike Racing, and is North America's premier motorcycle road racing series. Rewatch every round of the 2022 series and revisit all the action with the MotoAmerica Live Plus video-on-demand streaming service. Or visit the MotoAmerica YouTube channel for race highlights and original video content.

To view the complete 2023 MotoAmerica race schedule, head over to motoamerica.com. And be sure to follow MotoAmerica on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for real-time series updates.

[Music Playing]

Welcome everybody, to Episode 152. Dave is out this week, but we have a great show nonetheless with our guest Jared Bolton coming on to discuss all things GNCC in 2023.

But before we get to our guest, here's a little all access conversation for you before we get to Jared's interview.

As we all know, round two of the Oakland Supercross was postponed until February 18th due to the inclement weather in California, AKA the bomb cyclone.

And even though there was no racing this past weekend, I don't know if any of you listeners out there have a YouTube channel or go on YouTube and watch videos. I'm sure you do. But if you happen to catch any of the surfing action on YouTube over the past week, you'll know there were some epic waves in what's been called a once in a lifetime event.

And for me, personally, I just kind of connected it to riding a motorcycle. To me, it's just mesmerizing to watch these incredible surfers in their element enjoying every moment of it. And it just reminds me so much of being in the zone on a motorcycle and you just can't help but being happy for these surfers to have their moment like this, probably a once in a lifetime moment for them.

And so, I thought it was really cool to kind of peek in on that world since we had a bye week with no motocross racing this past weekend.

So, speaking of once in a lifetime events, though, as I mentioned with Oakland being postponed, this is only the second time in the history of the entire Supercross series that a race did not happen because of weather. And motocross is just one of those sports, rain or shine, doesn't matter, we race.

And so, this was a big deal in the industry, everybody was talking about it. And personally, I think it was the right decision to make. I mean, there was just unprecedented rain happening and floods and from what I understood, they couldn't even get started building a track in Oakland because all the dirt was pretty much saturated. It was raining days up until the event.

And so, I think they've made the right call in this particular case and I know there was probably a lot of unhappy riders and teams. But anyways, we'll be back this weekend. So, unprecedented happenings in Supercross.

One thing we didn't mention last week though, is during the opening round, they made an announcement that the two SuperMotocross playoff rounds have been announced. And the first one is going to be September 9th and it's going to take place at zMAX Dragway in Concord, North Carolina. And then on September 23rd at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois, we'll have round two of the playoffs.

And so, what's cool about these events though is these are race car speedways and so, the footprint is massive for these. So, we're looking at these hybrid tracks that they've already kind of showed some basic layouts of how these tracks are going to be set up.

And so, longer lap times, way more room spread out over, I believe it was Joliet, has over 500 acres that they're giving to the Supercross Series to use to set up the track. And from what I understand, there's going to be press boxes. They're going to have high-end lounges for people to hang out in, people being able to walk around the track.

So, it's this hybrid setup for these SuperMotocross playoff rounds are going to be super interesting and fun to attend.

And then of course, the final round is going to be October 14th in Los Angeles at the LA Memorial Coliseum. Definitely an iconic venue in Supercross.

And so, yeah, it's kind of cool that they announced all these playoff rounds, going to be exciting stuff. So, new to Supercross series, never been done. And looking forward to seeing this all go down here in the fall.

Now, as we head into round three of the Supercross series, it's looking like finally the bomb cyclone's going to go away and we'll be back to regular action this weekend in San Diego. And the cool part about it though is with that week off, to me, it feels like we got round one all over again. So, not often we get to have two round ones.

And so, I'm going to kind of look at the bright side and say round three is kind of like round one since we had a week off. So, looking forward to that action coming up this weekend.

Also, thought I'd mention, after 14 stages and over 8,500 kilometers, the 45th Dakar rally came to an end this past Sunday, January 15th. And Kevin Benavides took the lead on the final day to beat Toby Price in the general standings by a mere 43 seconds.

That's absolutely incredible, narrowest winning margin into Dakar history. And that was after 44 plus hours of racing over two weeks. So, for it to come down to I mean, literally the last stage and whoever won got the Dakar title.

Skyler Howes, who we had on the show recently, did America proud and brought home his factory Husqvarna for an impressive third place podium finish after contending for the win the entire two weeks, and just couldn't be happier for him.

It was a breakout performance for the American, who's steadily increased his rally race craft over the last three, four years. And yeah, just couldn't be happier for him. He was in contention for it down to the last couple rounds and I think he gave it his all and just super proud of him.

A couple of other Americans I wanted to give a shout out to though, Mason Klein was in the top 10 until he pulled out after some injuries from a crash during the middle of, I think it was around stage 10 or 12. I think he went out, had a collision with another racer. So, unfortunately, he didn't make it to the finish.

But other Americans that did make it to the finish were Jacob Argubright, who finished third place in the rookie standings and 22nd overall. Pablo Copetti finished 48th overall. Petr Vlcek finished 59th overall, and Morrison Hart finished 85th overall out of the 90 riders who made it to the finish.

So, a big congrats to all 90 of those riders who made it over the two weeks and 8,500 kilometers of the 171 starters. Those 90 riders were the ones that made it to the finish. So, congratulations to all those riders and it was fun to follow along and definitely, an incredible Dakar rally this year.

Well, that's about it for all acts for this week. Let's get going with our interview with Jared Bolton.

[Music Playing]

Dale Spangler:

He's Junior Trail Boss for the Grand National Cross-Country Series, and a member of the MX Sports race operations team. Jared Bolton, welcome to Pit Pass Moto. How's it going today?

Jared Bolton:

Oh man, it's going great here. It's actually a really nice day here in Morgantown. It snowed a little bit over the weekend, but man, it's up in the 50s now, so all that stuff's melted away, which makes me happy because I'm originally from North Carolina, so we never got too much snow where I grew up. So, when I moved up north I'm like, “Hey man, this snow stuff's for the birds.”

Dale Spangler:

No doubt. For sure. So, how has your off season been? Did you get to go out and do any maybe fun trips or any vacations or anything like that during your downtime? Because I know you have pretty minimal downtime in your position.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, yeah. We're basically nonstop from the end of February until the beginning of November. Managed to sneak in a beach trip when we went to my mom and dad's house for Christmas. So, that's kind of like a tradition between me, my wife and my brother. We go down to North Myrtle Beach for a couple of days, so squeak that in there.

But other than that, we've just been hard at it getting stuff ready for the season, so it's kind of never ending around here.

Dale Spangler:

Yeah. With so much going on. GNCC obviously being just one of the many things that you guys put on as part of MX Sports, but let's talk specifically again about GNCC.

So, how are things looking for the 2023 series? I think I saw where you just … the full schedule is in place and how about anything new to the series for 2023?

Jared Bolton:

For this year we actually, we dropped down to 12 rounds. We've been at 13 rounds for, God, as long as I can remember. And we dropped down to 12 this year because we are actually involved with the SuperMotocross events at the end of the year. So, most of our staff will be at those Charlotte and Chicago rounds, which will be really cool.

So, that's kind of the only change. We're racing a lot of the same places. We had some places we looked at and we had one in the works, but unfortunately, just couldn't quite put a deal together for 2023. And then on top of that, would've needed to be at the beginning of April and we just felt it couldn't be quite ready for us then.

But hopefully, for 2024, we've got at least one new venue and then there's some others we're looking at, talking about a little bit and hopefully can come up with something.

But for 2023, we're kind of sticking with what we've done the last couple of years. And we raced Ironman twice and the Big Buck in South Carolina twice, which a lot of people aren't too big a fans of that. I read the social media comments, I know people aren't too into that.

But on the flip side of that, for all the people that speak up and say they don't like it, I hear from a lot of people face-to-face that they actually really enjoy having some of those events twice. Because they really feel like two totally different places. And a lot of people are just grateful that we have somewhere to race at all.

Dale Spangler:

Yeah, absolutely. So, I believe so you're talking about Big Buck, it's round one and four. But what I did read about it, which I think is cool, is like round four is you're going about it where it's going to be a completely different layout in some ways to the track, so it'll feel like a different round.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we've done that 2021 and 2022, we've raced at Big Buck twice like that. And both times we've been able to make it just enough different that you don't feel like you're at the same place.

And then the advantage also, it's not a big gap between the two, it's only about less than a month really. But that month makes a big difference down there. When we go in February, everything's looks like it does anywhere on the East Coast at that point. All the leaves are off the trees, everything's (I don't want to call it dead looking), but it's kind of barren in a way.

And then when we come back down south, they've got a little bit better weather at that point and you're starting to see a little bit of green on the trees, starting to sprout a little bit. That makes it feel a whole lot different. And then obviously, incorporating those different sections.

And actually for … we call the second one Tiger Run. For Tiger Run, we try to find some bike only single track that we can't usually do in February. Because a lot of times, it's just a still a little too wet down there, but we manage to squeak it in for the bike guys and get some nice tight single tracky type stuff to break up the other stuff.

Dale Spangler:

There’s something else I noticed, I don't know if this is new this year, but you have this Fast Track Pre-Registration Program. Explain that to our listeners.

That seems pretty cool too, because obviously, sometimes just signing up can be difficult for some of these different series where you're literally like almost waiting in a queue to try and get the whole shot on everybody and signing up. So, yeah, explain this Fast Track Pre-Registration Program idea.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah. So, GNCC has had a pre-registration system for, geez, quite a few years. Like I remember using it back around 2007, but it's changed a lot over the years and it's gotten better and better.

And one of the biggest advantages now, is that our friends at Rocky Mountain ATV/MC actually give you a $20 gift card. Whatever you sign up with, the email address, it goes straight into your Rocky Mountain account. There's no codes to type in or anything, it just goes straight into your account.

And it does expire after a certain amount of time, but if you're racing all four of those first four races, that adds up and you can put that money towards anything on Rocky Mountain.

There's actually quite a few series that use that program, but the difference between ours and theirs is most places it's a $10 gift card. And with us, it's actually $20. So, if you're paying $50 to race, it's really only like paying $30 to race. It's pretty good deal there.

And not only that, but you don't necessarily get to skip the line, you still have to get in line and get your packet and sign the release, but that pre-registration line's a lot quicker and a lot shorter than it is to go through the whole thing.

Dale Spangler:

Heck yeah, 20 bucks is 20 bucks, right?

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, exactly.

Dale Spangler:

So, some years ago I wrote this piece about the club that puts on the Murphy, Idaho Hare & Hound. And for me personally, it was just very eye-opening because I had no idea going in just how much work goes in to put on a single Hare & Hound event.

Now, likewise for you guys, like for listeners that may not know out there, like how much work goes into a single GNCC event? Like how long does it take for you guys to prepare that course for a weekend of racing?

Jared Bolton:

So, we're actually very efficient and we've got a good staff. But with that said, it's not like we've got 20 guys out there trying to build a racetrack. When we go out and start laying things out, we start Monday evening before the race or Tuesday morning and it's basically just myself and Ryan Echols that go out and do the actual layout on the woods sections.

And I'll always say, I get all the credit and everything, but man, Ryan Echols, he's the mastermind behind the majority of these courses and he's the one that really makes sure everything happens. We joke around that I'm the better talker and I'm the better face. So, I do this kind of stuff to give these guys credit.

But we'll start Monday and Tuesday, kind of get things going. We've got a couple of guys that'll start adding in arrows and the tape and all of that kind of stuff. And it all kind of comes together throughout the course from basically, like I said, Monday afternoon to Friday morning. That thing goes from bare piece of property to a full-blown racetrack in just a few days.

But we do that with a pretty minimal group. We're just very efficient and basically work — as long as the sun's up, we're pretty well working all of those days. But then there's a totally different group of guys that do the pits. The tents you see, the signage, that kind of stuff.

And interestingly enough, there's a couple more of those guys because it takes quite a few guys to put up a tent and it takes a lot of guys to put up the repeater banner and that kind of stuff. So, they're hard at it too.

And it's a hardworking crew with just everybody involved and proud of what these guys accomplish. And it's really rewarding to see it all come together.

And then Monday morning when it's over, we can go back to work again and start tearing it all back down to pack it up and take it to the next place. Which that tear down part is probably my least favorite part. But every year I try to tell myself, “Oh, I love tearing down arrows. it's so much fun.” And 13 years in, I still don't believe it.

Dale Spangler:

So, I have to imagine though, when you guys are setting that up, maybe get a little bored, but there's got to be some shenanigans that go down when you guys are laying out these courses in the woods. Any good practical jokes you guys play on each other?

Jared Bolton:

That's basically all day long. That's all we do. You get any group of guys together, it doesn't matter if it's construction workers, firefighters, pipeliners, there's definitely things that go down.

And there's stuff that happened that probably can't go divulge too many details in, but everybody's got that one guy that you just love to, I don't want to say mess with, but you love to pull the jokes on because they've got the best reaction of anybody.

And we've got one of those too in the form of our buddy, Zach. Zach takes it in stride and he dishes it right back too. So, everybody's got a Zach and our Zach just happens to actually be a Zach.

Dale Spangler:

Nice. So, I'm curious to know though, with the series continuing to grow each year, are there some things that you guys have done to implement it in the series to increase rider safety through the years?

Because I think like the course marking system for example, like I feel like those probably are continually evolving to be a little safer. You've got radio spotters out in the woods, things like that.

Like I almost wonder, like do you foresee at some point there being some type of onsite medical staff similar to the Alpinestars medical unit we see at Supercross? I mean, do you see something like that potentially happening? Because I mean, the number of people that are showing up at these races is just astronaut. It's unbelievable, really.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, yeah. I definitely see that coming. There's some talks about putting something together. Steward Baylor has a guy that he works with that's a doctor. They call him Dr. Tanner. And Dr. Tanner's working on putting something together.

And it's tough because you have to find people to manage that the whole time. And it'll get there, there's no doubt. We just have to find those people within our community that would be willing to say, “Okay, hey, I'll work Saturday, you work Sunday,” that kind of stuff. Or, “I'll work these four races, you work these four races.” It's coming to that.

But even so, our staff, we actually go through OSHA and tactical first aid training every year. It's actually coming up next week. We're actually doing that. We bring in our entire staff, we bring in some of our motocross staff and actually some of the pro motocross promoters attend as well.

And it's very helpful and it's helped me because not only am I out there helping build the tracks, but I'm the main sweep rider. So, a lot of times I'm the first one to an incident or any of our guys are there, they're the first ones to an incident.

And yeah, it's very helpful that if you don't have full-blown EMT training, just that tactical first aid can make a big difference in just being able to make sure things are under control before the real true medics get there.

But the upside to GNCC is that people like to say, “Oh, the tracks are wide open, they're fast, they're like a motocross race through the woods,” but it's not always true. Even though they are a little faster than your local Hare Scrambles at times, you're still relatively safe speed.

So, we don't see too many outrageous injuries. You get your common broken ankle, broken wrist, that kind of stuff. And a lot of times we're able to get those guys out ourselves and just bring them straight to the medics.

But every now and then, you'll get a pretty significant injury that you have to get the medics in there and let them tend to them and help them get them out of the woods and that kind of stuff. But it's definitely coming that there's going to be definitely some advances in that system, probably just within the next year or so, we're going to see some big difference.

Dale Spangler:

Oh wow. But that's really cool to know that you guys take that training because that just seems like it makes absolute sense. When you guys are, like you said, first contact in some cases out in the woods, having some of those trauma skills, if you will, to be able to help a rider on the scene, that makes a lot of sense and it's good to know.

Jared Bolton:

It's very helpful. And then the people we learn from are actually ex-military and actually still work with the military doing this same kind of stuff. So, it's key for us because to me, there's no better people to learn from than the military that are used to that hands-on combat type training right away.

Dale Spangler:

Oh yeah. High stress situations too. Alright, let's talk a little bit more about the eMTB series because man, that thing just seems like it just keeps continuing to grow. You've got what, nine rounds for 2023? Yes, talk a little bit about that. Is it just continuing to grow year over year?

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not been quite an explosion of growth. Yeah, from 2020 to 2021, it grew like 60% and then we're kind of been about the same over last year. But it continues to be really good numbers.

And what I think was interesting, I was just looking at our executive summary. Our biggest class was a new addition. It was the, we call it the Big Bore Class, which is for 200 pound plus guys that actually had the most entries of any class last year.

So, it's cool that there's guys like me that got a little more weight to them, want to get out there and race the e-mountain bikes.

And this year we're also trying some things a little bit different. The way it's worked basically since we've added the e-mountain bikes, they've always raced at the end of the day on Saturday. We give them as much different trail as possible.

It's more like a old school enduro. It's a little tight single track. I love final sweep on the thing, get to ride my dirt bike on it because I try not to ride it before that so I don't mess it up. At the end, all bets are off because the race is over at that point.

But so, we get some single tracky type stuff in there, but no matter what you do to get to and out of that, you have to run some of the same stuff that the quads run on Saturday. So, the finish line, that kind of stuff.

But this year we're experimenting a little bit. We're going to run a few races on Friday afternoon before anybody touches it. So, that should give those guys a little bit better quality race course as a whole and hopefully, that kind of puts an incentive for some of these guys to come race.

I know some of the ATV guys have raced their quad and then hurry up and changed and jumped right on the e-bike and done that. Maybe that'll give those guys a chance to kind of go race a little more often than what they've wanted to in the past.

And then for the bike guys, it gives them an entire day to rest up and get ready for Sunday. So, I think we'll see how it goes, but hopefully, it just helps grow the e-mountain bike thing even more.

Dale Spangler:

Can anybody stop Charlie Mullins? I mean, he is what, four-time Champ now?

Jared Bolton:

Actually, last year was Charlie's last year on the e-bike.

Dale Spangler:

Whoa. Really?

Jared Bolton:

He actually announced that here recently. And him and his wife, Rachel, the ones that are managing the MotoTees side of things right now. And they were at our office last week for a merchandise type meeting and kind of we're poking them a little bit like, “Hey, who's got to take your spot?”

And it could be some good race in there because you take Charlie out to the mix and there's some guys in there that are going to be hungry and it could be really interesting to see what happens.

Dale Spangler:

Definitely. Here's something that I didn't know existed on the GNCC website because GNCC, as we know you and I, Jared, they have some of the craziest, most rabid, funnest fans I think out there of about any series.

And so, you guys created this fan guide that basically tells the ins and outs of going to a GNCC race. Where did you guys come up with that idea? I just think it's so cool some of the things they talk about in there.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah. So, anything like that it usually comes from you get phone calls asking all these different questions and after a certain point you realize you're getting a lot of phone calls asking the same kind of questions.

So, sometime back we decided, “Hey, let's just put this guide together that people can just find on their own or we can refer them to or whatever. That kind of gives you all the details on what you can do, what you can see.” There's a little bit in there like, “Hey, don't do this, don't do that.” Like stealing our signage.

It's like a time-honored tradition among people to steal banners. But we reuse a lot of the same stuff, so we kind of tell people not to do that. And especially my mile markers, I've put up the mile markers every race for, oh my God, over 10 years now, the big mile marker sign.

And I always do it Friday morning and it never fails. It's like almost every race, somebody wants to steal one of those mile marker signs. And I'm like, “Now, wait a minute. Those things cost like $10 a piece.” There's $130 worth of mile marker signs out there. That adds up over time. They're not free and we reuse them.

So, that's always my biggest thing, like, “Please don't steal my mile marker signs. But feel free to go out there, you can go basically anywhere on the track that nobody's telling you not to go and get as close as you want, within reason.” And it's really cool and GNCC just this unique animal that you're not confined by a fence the whole time.

Dale Spangler:

Yeah, absolutely. I love that about GNCC. I call it like the more common-sense approach, where it's like, “Hey, if you get hit crossing the track by a motorcycle, it's probably your own dumb fault because you weren't paying attention.”

And so, I just love that kind of more common-sense approach, where how many sports can you go out and walk around the entire course and just kind of be part of the action and up close.

So, I mean, that is such a cool thing about GNCC especially, some of these races where you guys have the hill climbs and you've got these people lined up on the hillsides helping riders climb hills with their bikes. And so, that to me has always been one of the funnest parts of the GNCC series is the fans themselves.

Jared Bolton:

Yeah. And it's really cool to ride through that stuff too. At Snowshoe, the most famous thing there is Howard's Hole. You go down to Howard's Hole, you come off the side of the mountain and you're just downhill, downhill, downhill for what seems like forever.

And it finally starts to flatten out a little bit, but it's just nothing but rock. And about the time it flattens out, you just start to see the sea of people and you come around a corner and just all you see is mud, rocks and people.

And they kind of help funnel you into the good line and get you through there. Nobody ever gets stuck in Howard's Hole. There's plenty of people that'll break down and be sitting there, but it's not because they were stuck, it's just because their machine broke.

It's just a unique thing. And even at the end of the race when it's over, you get down there on final sweep and the crowd's still just as big as it was on the first lap.

Dale Spangler:

Definitely. Yeah. Curious to know. So, you've been doing this for a number of years now. How long have you been doing it now? You've been doing it eight to 10 years now. Has it been that long?

Jared Bolton:

Oh yeah, even longer. I started in 2010. So, I'm going on 13 years now.

Dale Spangler:

So, what's been the most rewarding part of this job with MX Sports? Because I mean, obviously this type of work's not for everybody. I mean, you're traveling a lot, you're away from home when these racers are going on, but at the end of the day, it seems like you love what you're doing.

And so, I'm just curious to know like what is been rewarding about this position that you've had with MX Sports?

Jared Bolton:

So, that's actually a really tough question because there's so many things. But one of the biggest rewards for me is honestly, I could go to the doctor right now and I almost guarantee I could be diagnosed as OCD. And people say that, but I'm kind of dead serious about that.

But for me, the biggest reward is just making sure everything happens the way it's supposed to happen in a timely manner and putting things together. It's just the whole organizational thing and making sure the actual operations of the race happened.

That's the biggest reward for me is watching the race itself happen the way it's supposed to happen, as much as it can, at the time it's supposed to happen and watching people enjoy it. I mean, to me, seeing the fun in people's eyes, you can see that look that they're truly enjoying themselves. Even on a terrible day when it's muddy and nasty, they're still having fun. And I look at somebody that's having fun no matter what and that's just an instantly rewarding thing.

Dale Spangler:

Yeah. And then you get to go out there and ride yourself, like you said, because you are the sweep rider. Which, if those maybe out there that don't know what that is, that's basically the guy that goes around and make sure there's no one still left on the course, right?

Jared Bolton:

Yeah, yeah, that's correct. So, there's a misconception too, is like there's a lot of people that think I'm just riding the entire time, which is a little off. Usually, the way I handle it is we've got enough guys on quads out there around that I'll take off and ride the first lap and we make sure nobody's sitting there for the entire race.

Now, that still happens sometimes. You'll get one that's just broke down in just a terrible spot that they were hurt. We could get them out because they're hurt, but just because they're broke down, like, “Hey, I'm sorry, sometimes you might have to sit there for two hours, but we try to get you out the best we can.”

So, I'll ride the first lap off the start, make sure everything's good, and then I kind of go poke around while the race is going on and make sure places are good, make sure there's nobody broke down.

And then when the checkered flag goes out … if you ever watch a GNCC on TV, it's so funny, I can see myself every time. Checkered flag goes out, leader crosses the finish line, you see me throw on goggles and I take off and it's without fail is how that works.

So, that's always a lot of fun too. And it's interesting, last year I got to doing a little bit more of the pro motocross races and we realized, I think two or three races and we're like, “Hey, the guys on dozers, they're sitting there waiting.” And other times telling them on the radio like, “Hey, you're clear.” Or they're looking for the last bike.

So, actually started sweeping pro motocross races too and that's way different. I'm not riding the track, I ride the [crosstalk 00:28:14] roads and ride by dozer and just give the guy thumbs up and say, “Hey man, you're good.” And keep rolling. So, that's pretty fun too.

Dale Spangler:

Well, something else I wanted to point out here as we wrap this up here, your interview, you actually pen a weekly column called Quick Fill: This Week in GNCC Racing. It's kind of like Racerhead for our listeners out there are familiar with Racer X’s Racerhead that comes out on Fridays.

So yeah, talk about that. That's a great place for people who are regulars for the series to kind of check in and learn about anything new, anything that's developing with the series and about upcoming rounds. So, yeah, where can people find that out?

Jared Bolton:

Yeah. So, we do Quick Fill. Usually, during the season, try to get it out on Thursday and then during the winter it might be Friday, but it comes from the Racerhead concept.

And it's funny, Quick Fill started, I want to say 2006 or 2007. And back then it was Jason Weigandt doing it, that's when it all kind of came together. And he did it from 2006 to somewhere around 2009. And then they had a couple of different series media people do it for a little bit.

And somewhere around 2010, I was just sending stuff in just like, “Hey look, you can talk about this, talk about that.” And we'd write a couple of things. And when I got involved with the series it was like, “Hey, why don't you just contribute a section each week?”

So, I did that for a couple of years and then we kind of changed media managers back in 2015. And we did that, we had a gap for a couple months where we didn't have an actual media manager and I kind of took over the Quick Fill thing then, and I've been doing it ever since.

Each week it kind of gets harder and harder to talk about a whole lot of stuff, but I go back and look at some of Weigandt’s old Quick Fill entries and man, I'm like, “Those were so good. They were really good.” And I'm like, “I don't know if it's just nostalgia or because it's Weigandt.” But there'd be talking about a race or something like that or talking about what to expect from this race.

And then there'd just be a line in there like, “Random thing from the office just now. Rita asked me to go clean the bathroom. Moving on, blah, blah, blah.” And I'm like, “Man, that's just like you pepper in a little bit of humor and it makes a big difference.”

I try to do that a little bit too, but I’m no Jason Weigandt, it's a little bit harder for me.

Dale Spangler:

You're doing it great. Don't undersell it though, you're doing a great job on them. I read a couple of them here before this interview and I was like, “Hey, he's doing a really good job on those.” I thought you had really good flow with it. So, congrats on that, dude. You're doing a good work.

Jared Bolton:

Oh yeah, thank you. I try to write it like if me and you are just sitting here talking about it. And it's not like every week somebody says, “Man, I love this, I love that.” But it's pretty consistent that people say, “I love the way it reads. It's just like we're just sitting there talking.”

Which, that's always my goal is that it doesn't need to sound like an epic novel. Yeah, I just want it to sound like, “Hey, we're just sitting around bench racing talking about the races and get you your news for the week that you might need to know about whatever's going on or whatever to expect for the weekend.”

Dale Spangler:

Absolutely. Well, folks, the opening round of the GNCC series is set for February 18th and 19th. That's at Big Buck South Carolina and pre-registration is now open.

Jared, really appreciate your time today. Any last words before we wrap up this episode?

Jared Bolton:

Oh man, I just want to say thank you to you guys for having me on. And of course, thank you to everybody that comes to a GNCC. Without the racers, it really wouldn't be possible.

And obviously, thanks to our entire staff. We don't have all day, so I can't sit here and name off names. And I hate doing that because I'm always afraid I'm going to miss somebody. And it seems like I always do.

But from our executive leadership, Rita and Carrie and Tim Cotter. They've been at it since the beginning. Jeff Russell, who is still the true Trail Boss. They're the ones that really make things happen. And really, really proud to be part of this team.

Dale Spangler:

Awesome. Well, everything GNCC you can find at gnccracing.com. And once again, Jared, thanks for all you do and thanks for your time today.

Jared Bolton:

Oh yeah, thank you. Always, always glad to talk about GNCC.

[Music Playing]

Dave Sulecki:

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Dale Spangler:

This has been a production of Evergreen Podcasts. A special thank you to Tommy Boy Halverson and the production team at Wessler Media. I'm Dale Spangler.

Dave Sulecki:

And I'm Dave Sulecki. See you next week on Pit Pass Moto.