Holidays in the sun
By TMX Archives on 12th Oct 04
Imagine a place where you're treated like a factory star, the food is excellent and the ladies are lovely. Sounds like heaven... REALITY HITS harder than Mike Tyson and bites deeper than Jaws. My reality this week is Morecambe. It's 9am on a Monday and the weather - like my mood - is gloomy and dark. Morecambe's enough to depress anyone at any time but after returning from a sunny MX utopia it's obvious I've arrived straight back into the pits of hell. For the past few months I've been enticed by an ad that appears monthly in dbr's marketplace section. It's like some kind of super-sensual and slinky siren. 'Come train and race in California' it calls... 'Eight day Glen Helen MX ride trip'... 'Four days riding (Glen Helen, Perris etc)'... 'Visits to Troy Lee Designs, Chaparral Motorsports, Pro Circuit'... Hubba! It's like porno for photo-journalists. So I scrimped and saved my pennies, packed my camera, shorts and riding kit into a borrowed bag and then left a note on my desk at dbr towers. 'Dudes, I'm off to Cali. So long suckers! Love Sutty Xxx.' While the MX Heaven trip officially started on the Friday, work commitments (co-promoting the all-Irish minibike mud-wrestling championships in Ballykelly) meant I had to stay behind and miss the first half of the trip. But first thing on Monday morning I was firmly planted in seat 58G on Virgin flight VS7 from London Heathrow to Los Angeles. Flying is usually a bore but Virgin airlines have the most amazing in-flight entertainment system and time on the flight literally flew by (insert groan here). After two meals, a few Stellas, four movies and an episode of Fur TV I touched down in America - land of the free, home of 24-hour everything and, of course, MX Heaven. Dogma claims that Heaven has gates and rather annoyingly there were gates keeping me out of MX Heaven - but these were the immigration gates at LAX. It's worth remembering that if you ever want to enter America you need some sort of address for where you'll be staying - I didn't have one and couldn't get in. But a quick call got me the info I needed and after filling in the appropriate forms I cleared customs and hooked up with MX Heaven's creator Stefan Elvin in the airport lobby. I'd never met Stefan before and all I really knew about the guy was that he's originally from Sweden and he's obviously obsessed with motocross. So as I looked around the lobby for a suitable candidate I figured he must be the guy with the blond hair humming an Abba tune and wearing a Renthal t-shirt. As Stefan drove me away from LAX I couldn't help but feel like I'd stepped straight into MX central. Within an hour we passed the Pro Circuit headquarters, the Kawasaki supercross test track (it's right next to the freeway) and possibly the most obscure but my personal favourite - Tuff Shed. Does anyone even remember Shed Guy from the original Crusty Demons of Dirt movie? Class! Anyhoo, as the journey progressed Stefan filled me in on what had already happened and also what the week had in store for me. I'd missed riding days at Cahuilla Creek and Starwest and also the pinnacle of this particular Ride Trip - the final round of the AMA Nationals at Glen Helen. The other MX tourists would fill me in on what happened at those places later... Stefan and I arrived at his gaff (or MX Heaven as he likes to call it) in Perris just after the sun dipped in the sky and the 11 other guests had sat down to dinner. Never one to miss a meal I joined the group, scoffed some tasty salmon and got the low-down on who's who. The group could be split into three separate groups - the Midlanders, the Northerners and the Youngsters. The Midlanders were led by Jamie Williams. Jamie's one of the UK contacts for MX Heaven and he was there with brother Adam and Uncle John who was a multi-time AMCA champion back in the day. They'd dragged fellow AMCA riders Russ Hartill, Nick Gill and Martin Hayden along with them. The Northerners were represented by plumbers Steve Heeley and Stuart Baker who'd come to the States with Mancunian Mick Nicholls. These three guys are regulars on the north west enduro scene, usually competing in the popular Wirral Off-Road hare and hound series. Finally there were the two Liams - McCaskill and Ingram. Liam McC usually rides in the AMCA Inter-Juniors and Liam Ingram used to ride on the Isle of Wight. I say used to ride because it seems motocross has come to a standstill on the island since RTT took over at Gore Basin and the other track on the island - Knighton - is having issues with planning permission. Between them they all filled me in on what they'd been up to in the Californian sun while I'd been up to my knees in Irish mud. Day one was apparently spent at Cahuilla Creek (www.ccmxpark.com) which Martin reckons is, "a good natural track". Everyone agreed that it was a good way to get broken in to riding in California and a dip in Lake Perris on the way home cooled everyone down before they hit the beers. The next day was spent spectating at the final round of the AMA Nationals at Glen Helen. It's fair to say that they do everything bigger and better in the States and it seems that motocross is done in the same way. "The atmosphere was amazing," enthuses Martin. "Stuff like the national anthem before the race and all the Yankee ***t - yelling and stuff. It was really good." While I was flying out on the Monday the boys were getting in some airtime themselves at Starwest (www.starwestmx.com). Starwest is a floodlit facility that's within ear-shot of MX Heaven. All anyone would tell me about that place was that Adam spent most of the day panic-revving MX Heaven's CRF450 on a tricky - for him anyway - step-up. "You should have heard it bouncing off the rev-limiter," reckons Russ. "Durr-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-durr-ma-nurr." My own first full day in the States was going to be spent at the legendary Lake Elsinore motocross park (www.eteamz.com/elsinoremxpark/). As we pulled into the track in the MX Heaven minibus we saw that Sam (Hall - an ex-Brit and Stefan's MX Heaven sidekick) had arrived early and got everything set-up and ready to rip. Now that's service! The Elsinore facility place is huge, open seven days a week and has something like nine tracks within its boundaries. The main track is closed every Tuesday - the day we went - which is probably a good thing judging by the complexity and size of most of its obstacles including the biggest jump - a 130 foot step-up. So that left the Vet track and the race track available for us grown-ups to use. We mainly concentrated on the race track but Nick and I took a sneaky ride over to the vet track for a few laps where we were joined by the Metal Mulisha's Brian Deegan and Ronnie Faisst as well as KTM's Aussie import Brett Metcalfe. Riding alongside the stars is an everyday business in So Cal and no one seems to care who's out on the track - they're just too busy trying to tear it up for themselves. The two tracks that we rode at Elsinore are full of jumps. There was nothing too tricky out there and everything's really safe which in the land of the law-suit is a necessity. Dust ain't a problem either and the tracks are watered regularly which is a bonus. Another bonus (hey, that makes it a double bonus) was the way in which Stefan's willing to coach anyone who's willing to listen and learn. He really knows his stuff and watches where you're going wrong before pulling you up and then setting you straight. Of course, if you just wanna ride that's cool too. As we left the Elsinore circuit we pulled straight into Langston Racing which is situated on the industrial park that's adjacent to the track. Gerald Langston - Grant's old-man - gave us a tour of the building and took us upstairs to check out his son's championship winning 125 KTM! After that it was back to base to a monster meal and more beers. Wednesday dawned and as the main group had spent two days in a row riding it was gonna be a rest day of sorts. Stefan took us shopping before we did a drive-by stalking of Jeremy McGrath's house. Stefan's actually a good friend of McGrath's from back when Jeremy was a chunky nobody and if he was home we'd have probably got the guided tour of his gaff and garage too. But seeing as he wasn't in we did more shopping at a local outlet mall that has plenty of Fox, No Fear, Metal Mulisha and other MX related goodies to offer. The next day was a day I'll remember forever. It was the day us mere mortals got to leave wheeltracks on the Glen Helen circuit - the same one that RC, Bubba and the boys were tearing up on the Sunday. There's no better word to describe this track than awesome. It has everything - big hills, big jumps, sand whoops, loamy bends and the NASCAR banking style first turn. Again there were some top-notch riders here from future stars Ryan Villopoto and Tim Weigand to past masters Greg Albertyn and '80s SX champ Jeff Ward. It was cool to watch them ride but not as cool as doing it yourself and it's hard to describe how sweet it is to ride a circuit that you always thought you'd only see in magazines and on video. When everyone was too tired to ride anymore Sam started packing the fleet of bikes back in to the trailer and we headed back to MX Heaven HQ calling in at Chaparral on the way. In case you don't know, Chaparral is one big-ass bike dealership and if you can't buy it at Chaparral it probably ain't worth buying. Back at base we had the best meal I think I've ever eaten (sorry mum) then seeing as it was Russ' birthday - and our last night in America - we got changed and partied like it was 1999, finally rolling back in at 4am in a slightly inebriated state with big grins on our faces. All of which just left the final day. As everyone had hangovers (except for the two Liams) it was a late start and by the time we'd had lunch at In-N-Out Burger - Stephane Roncada's favourite eatery - there was just time to hit Pro Circuit and Troy Lee Designs before heading back to the airport and back to Britain - boo! So is MX Heaven really all that? I'd personally say yes and everyone on this trip would agree too. It's still hard now (more than three weeks later) to talk about MX Heaven without breaking out into a huge grin - but why take my word for it? I'll leave the last word to Russ who pretty much summed up how I and everybody else felt about their time at MX Heaven. "Before I came out here I thought it would be a once in a lifetime trip. But now I've been I definitely want to come back again - it's basically been a fantastic vacation." Words by Sutty