Mini-SX In Seattle Proves Victorious For Twenty20 Crew and Racers Too! Jason Green 5/13/2005
Filed under: MX News
Eight Weeks To Seattle!!
Seattle, WA: The roaring crowds and flashes from the packed stands in Qwest field were the highlight of the weekend, but the AMA teams did more in Seattle than just race on Saturday…
Eight Weeks Until Seattle Supercross – Some might consider this the midnight hour in the scheme of race planning, but Marc Barros from Twenty20 felt like there was still time to put together an event for the upcoming Seattle SX. So he approached Joe Belshaw of Wide Open Sports Arena with an idea for a mini-bike event that would connect AMA teams to Seattle race fans.
Bob Lanphere’s Wide Open Sports Arena is a complete facility with pits, grandstands, VIP seating, and a view of the track from the bar. It’s easy to understand why this 70,000 square foot arena/dealership/Mecca was a good location to hold the inaugural Seattle Mini-SX Championship. When you factor in Seattle weather (rain) and its proximity to Qwest Field, the indoor arena became the obvious choice for the event.
Marc put together a presentation for Joe outlining what he wanted to do and finally, with less then five weeks left, the project was a go. Joe had to work quickly to prepare the track from a logistical, fiscal, and liability standpoint, while Marc had to hustle to get industry sponsors, AMA team mechanics, racers, and, most importantly, fans to attend the event.
Sponsors – Early on, Joe had put in a call to Dwayne Brown at BBR in the hopes of gaining them as a sponsor as well. This proved pivotal as they doubled the overall purse to $5000. BBR’s contribution, along with their ties to regional riders, would ensure a good turnout on the day of the event. Both Marc and Joe proceeded to line-up additional sponsors including Twenty20, Fly Racing, Devol, and Leo Vince. Each sponsor contributed plenty of promotional giveaways, banners, and support.
Now that the Seattle Mini-SX had its sponsors lined up, all that remained was to let all the fans in the area know about the event. With only weeks until the race, Joe (and anyone else who had ever tried to put together an event) was skeptical about getting the word out in time. But with the AMA pros making their first appearance in half a decade, they had to give it a shot.
Spreading the Word – Joe and the guys at BBR got to work immediately letting the local pros know about the race. Kyle Coen, BBR race team manager, was first on the list with hopes that the remaining riders would follow his lead. Joe explained, “You can count on the racers to show up the day of the event without any notice, let alone any idea how they heard about it,” presumably to allay any fears regarding rider attendance.
The Twenty20 team utilized every media outlet within their reach to promote the event. Marc “conveniently” scheduled a sales trip to Texas, which included time to drop in on the Dallas Supercross just so he could spread the word among the AMA mechanics. The mechanics were pumped, and they helped to uncover a glaring potential problem: what would they ride? Joe was ready to pose the same question to Marc upon his return from Dallas, and Marc’s answer was simple and only funny to Joe after the event was over, “We’ll have to figure something out.”
Without a Friday practice scheduled at Qwest Field, many of the mechanics had made plans to come in on Friday instead of Thursday with the rest of their race teams. Eventually, Marc found teams that were going to be in on Thursday: Team Yamaha, Star Racing, and Fly Racing were penciled in as participants and at that point the race was on.
Thursday April 14th, 2005 – The day of reckoning for Joe and Marc. The track came together early in the afternoon and the rest of the arena cleaned up nicely. Riders began showing up later in the afternoon and by practice time it looked as if there was going to be a full race schedule. Marc stepped away from the arena and headed to Qwest Field prepared to turn his ‘92 Volvo into a mechanic shuttle if that’s what it was going to take to ensure their attendance.
Joe and Marc were thrilled to see that their efforts had paid off when fans began to show up. There was a line out the door to buy tickets, the restaurant and bar were packed, a full lineup of quality racers were warming up, and the mechanics had made it down as well.
The main events were a battle between two local boys, Ryan Abrigo and Kyle Coen. Abrigo, who took 9th in the 125cc main at Qwest, handled Coen in the 110cc and 150cc, but couldn’t keep up with Coen’s 55 foot doubles in the 50cc final. Little men Bailey Hoit, Kyle Clark, and Cody Mecham, took the podium in the 50cc junior main event.
The mechanics’ race was a two session event and the question of what to ride was answered when BBR showed up with a load of their race bikes. The qualifying revealed the obvious disparity as Fly Racing team manager Jackson Esellman couldn’t find a way to make his 50 keep up with the bigger bikes. In the end, Brad Hoffman, the mechanic for Keith R. Johnson was edged by surprise entry Will “Big Bird” Pattison.
While Jason Haines and Steve Matthews (mechanics for David Vuillemin and Tim Ferry of Team Yamaha respectively) didn’t make it to the podium, they still had a good time flying around a near capacity crowd at the Wide Open Sports Arena. “I had a blast tonight, everything was cool, and we’ll definitely be back next year. Thanks again,” commented Steve Matthews.
The racing was quite a show, but from the audiences’ reaction, the most memorable event of the evening had to be the costume race. This was a four lap spectacle that pitted some of the best characters the local costume shop had to offer against each other, all of whom were handicapped with rubber chicken feet. It was meant mostly for the kids, but everyone got a kick out of it. “When I saw Spider man, Cat-in-the-hat, a clown, a tiger, and an ostrich line up on the gates, I almost fell out of my chair,” commented Terry Baisley, director of Fly Racing. In the end it was Spider Man (Kyle Coen) who flew over Cat-in-the-Hat (Brad Hoffman) to take the checkered flag.
Throughout the race Twenty20 employed their Helmet Cameras to get 1st person footage from all of the races. “We’re going to make a video compilation of both Helmet Camera footage and camcorder footage taken during the event and post it for everyone to see in the events section of our website www.twenty20camera.com. I’m sure everyone will like what they saw and hopefully the AMA will decide to come back next year, and we’ll get even more teams to participate,” said Marc.
When the race had ended I had to ask both Marc and Joe about what they thought of the evening. “We had a fantastic turnout tonight. What’s important is that everyone saw some great racing, and we introduced the Seattle Mini-SX as an annual event to be hosted by Wide Open Sports Arena for many more years to come. We hope to make this event even bigger next year.” As Marc was still running around the Arena at 11 P.M., I was able to grab him for a quick interview. “I felt like I was on the Apprentice all night, there were a million things going on all at once. Trump’s going to have to fire someone else though, because this event was a total success.”
After 5 short weeks – and one long Thursday – the event was a winner. Riders, race teams, sponsors, and most importantly, the fans all enjoyed the event. Marc and Joe have already decided that, rather than wait until four weeks prior to next year’s race, they will start planning soon in hopes of making the event even bigger. They have raised the bar and their sights are now set on AMA participation and turning the mechanic’s race into an annual charity event in Seattle.