Troy Dog
We took a week off to regroup and we are coming back better than ever for this week’s edition of Vintage Vibes!
If you’ve been living under a rock then you might not have heard that the #vurbshredtour is this weekend at Eastfork, which is GNCC legend and newly inducted AMA Hall of Famer Scott Plessinger’s track. Eastfork is in Ohio, which despite a ton of very fast riders, doesn’t have a lot of luck in the good tracks department.
Up until about 5 years ago, the Southern Ohio area was all but dried up in good tracks. That is, until Scott came to the rescue and set a legendary example on how a good facility should be run and prepped. Basically he put a “Field of Dreams” scenario in play where he built it and saved Motocross in this area.
Let’s throw this back to the last time vurbmoto had a ride day in Ohio in the Summer of 2014. Troy Dog actually remembers a lot of details about it because he helped set it up! Chili Dog had hit me up asking where we should go in Ohio to ride. At the time, Eastfork wasn’t a thing, somehow Briarcliff had something going on, so I thought, “why not Dirt Country”?
Dirt Country will forever go down in my heart as my favorite track. It’s located in Blanchester, Ohio and I could drive there in under an hour. It was my home race. I got my first holeshot, first win, and Justin Weeks once lapped me in two laps there in B class. That track, which is now closed for motocross, but still holds dirt drags will forever hold a specia place in my heart.
I called up the second generation track owners Rocky and Cindy to see if it would be possible and they were very thrilled. I passed the rest of it off to Chili Dog like my name was Joe Burrow and the Good Times and Dirt Bikes Tour had another event.
When I got to Dirt Country that day…I was overcome with different emotions. Cindy greeted me at the gate and thanked me for thinking of them. Their local races were not getting the turnouts like they used too, so I was hoping we would have a lot of riders come out. I pulled in and saw a big turnout and that was so cool to me. We had guys like Shawn Rife, Justin Weeks, and now the late and great Walker Brightwell shredding together like it was 2003. It’s a HUGE bummer, but that night at Dirt Country was probably the last time those three all got together to ride. Walker and Weeks went on to build the track called Windy Ridge while Rife went to build tracks with Jason Baker.
For one summer night, we were Kings at Dirt Country and it’s a night that I will never forget. To top it off it off, it had rained the night before and the track prep was the best I had ever seen it there. After the initial mud dried up we had multiple lines in every turn and it was deep!
