Troy Dog’s Shack: The Night I Stayed at Barcia’s

I’ve been saving a few of my stories for later on columns, but as we are already one year into the return of vurbmoto, why not celebrate with the story about the night I stayed at Justin Barcia’s house! It’s not as weird as it sounds. 

I won’t get into the story of how I ended up at Mini O’s in 2009, or how I ended up hanging with the Vurb crew that week, as I feel like it’s been told too many times. I might revisit those down the road. However, Bird and Chili Dog invited me to stay an extra week with them to go to Millsaps’ Training Facility to film a young Barcia who had just finished up a very successful rookie season in the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. We were also supposed to go to the Goat Farm to film Dungey, but that never happened and I never asked why.

I was 19 at the time and was slaying ribs and chicken at Big Rick Dog’s (my dad) restaurant, so I figured why not go? We drove from Gatorback to Barcia’s very impressive lakefront house…which I believe there was a lake? That’s what my old memory is serving me right now. We got to his house after dark and Stew Dog drove with me in my truck as we followed Chili and Bird Dog. I’m pretty sure we used Mapquest. 

When I walked in the house all I can remember is us talking to Justin’s mom Lorraine for a little and she showed us to where we could sleep. Chili got the spare bedroom to himself, Stew Dog slept in Justin’s room–I believe he had a bunk bed at the time, so that’s not weird–and Bird and I shared the big sectional couch feet to feet in the huge TV room. In the corner of the room was Justin’s Loretta Lynn’s winning CRF150 with number one plates around it and some huge trophies. 

Justin invited some buddies over, namely MTF legends Konnor Buffis, Nick Myers, and some guy named Gavin Faith to play some poker. We all got our Texas Hold Em on as Lorraine passed out snacks and Dixie Cups of lemonade. That’s not code for anything… it was literally lemonade. 

Despite not being very good at poker I finished third behind Barcia as Bird Dog won and ended up taking the entire pot of money, which I believe was eight whole dollars. I was on the podium with Barcia, bro! Can you say that? 

With that it was past our bedtime and we had a shoot the next day. 

We woke up early and Lorraine made us all breakfast before we loaded up and headed to MTF for the day. Stew Dog headed to the gym with Justin to get footage of him warming up, while I went to get B roll of the freshly prepped Supercross track Barcia would be riding that day. Bird Dog was out and about shooting photos. 

Finally Barcia suited up and Stew and I went out to film some riding! All of a sudden we saw a speck emerge from the old vurbmoto motorhome, dubbed “Mighty Whitey”, and the speck was holding a camera. It couldn’t be…it was! A re-energized Chili Dog was ready to film again! The retirement rumors were put to rest. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then read this week’s Vintage Vibes. 

We all had a great day of shooting and It was my first experience filming a rider of Justin’s caliber on a private track. We loaded up and drove to Chili Dog’s house that night where I ended up staying almost another week. I even went in-studio for the DMXS show that Wednesday night. 

Good times, bro. I’m starting to get to this point in my life where these memories are starting to fade and I want you guys to be able to enjoy them before I can’t remember certain details. Let me know in the comments if I should do some more columns like this. 

If you want to get in touch with Troy Dog you can email him at [email protected], he will answer all emails sent. Be sure to smash that follow button @troydogvurb on Instagram and Twitter.