Malvern GP by MERP - Race Recap

Jack Bierbower

PR Addict
Malvern GP Season Finale - Race Recap

Words: Bierbower
Photo: Frass

Well - there it is. The LAST race of the season as our FIRST season as race promoters. This project has come so far since last fall - close to a year on the day when we had our first team meeting we finish the last race. Looking back on what we have built from a 10,000 foot view. We are mighty proud of this series we have created. Overwhelmingly it has been positive - the response from our racers and fans has been humbling. We are in the process of building a series - one that will stand the test of time and fill a void in the market that racers have been asking for. GP racing has a future in the Ohio Motocross/Off-Road scene. Without the support of our racers this season - we wouldn’t be able to keep this train rolling. It’s been a good year - no, it’s been a GREAT year. Thank you. One million times - thank you.
Malvern Motocross hosted a Chamber of Commerce day once again for the final race of the Mid-East Racing Promotions Grand Prix Series. If we could bottle the weather and those track conditions and use them all year long - wow. The Motocross track was unbelievable Bobby Noah and his crew at Malvern gave us a premium race course. The Malvern Crew was beyond accommodating and we can’t thank them enough for opening up their gates and letting us take over their facility for a few days to host our event. The rain early in the week whipped the woods loop into tip top shape. We got ruts, bumps, roots, jumps, rollers, berms - the perfect canvas for a day of GP racing. Numbers were good, especially for all of the riding options open this weekend. 274 entries.

Racing ran on time! I think I can stop talking about that now but man it feels good for our crew to click off 4 races in a row that ran by the schedule - the latest green flag we threw all season was 10 minutes late. We can toot the horn pretty loud for that. Not to say we won’t have a fumble someday - but not bad for some rookies. A shout out to our sign up gals and our scoring guy - some gray hair is being created getting to run these races on time and sign up/scoring about 15 minutes before green flag is something like a war room. Papers flying - people yelling over the radio. But each time on the hour that flag goes up and racers go racing. We are beyond proud of our crew. We’ll be hiring some folks next year - keep your eyes peeled for that if you’re interested.

Mistakes? Yep - we made some. Pissed some people off? Probably did that too. On purpose? No, absolutely not. Will we do it again? Try like hell not to - but that’s not how motorcycle racing works.

Personally I tend to dwell on the mistakes we make along the way. It’s easy to take 100 “atta boys” for granted and focus on the one racer that bent your ear telling you how it should have been done better. I lose sleep over that stuff and that’s something I have to work on. That’s motorcycle racing in 2022 - it’s not perfect. Anytime a racer offers feedback we listen - that’s not crap either we take time and break it down. Sometimes it’s a suggestion we can implement- other times we can’t make it work. We make decisions with our best judgement with our racer and promoter hats on. This is something we are learning and we can get better at - it’s just repetition. We haven’t done this before and we need to practice. Not saying we’ll be the perfect series - we are human. We’ll make mistakes because that’s human. We won’t stop trying to tweak and make our program the best it can be. No series it perfect - but we’re gonna try like hell to make ours perfect.

A lot of words for a silly little dirt bike race. If you made it this far you’re a trooper - thank you.

Sponsor love post will come out this week.

On behalf of the whole MERP crew, thank you.
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You guys deserve alot of credit for the time you invested and the work you put into making this series fun and enjoyable. Ill put it this way, I hadnt raced in 20 years and had no interest in doing so, but after alot of convincing and a great day of riding and racing at the crow GP, I stepped way out of my comfort zone to attend grears and malvern, despite never having been to grears and not riding malvern since I was a teenager. Racing always stressed me out, but this racing is different. Want to get sendy? Go for it.. Want to just challenge yourself and enjoy riding a fun layout? No worries there either. Its literally like having your buddies own a track by some woods who let you come ride for a day.

So, thanks for getting me out there!
 
Glad to hear it went well!!! Congrats on putting it together and I’ve heard great things. Don’t let the 1 bad apple spoil the bunch. But do take the time to listen to the suggestions. Once you go behind the curtain to see what is involved it really opens your eyes. Having a good crew really helps and that positive environment translates to the racing. Great job and glad to hear you did well. Looking forward to 2023
 
Racing is all about fun and our whole goal is to never lose sight of that. Everybody has to get to work Monday - this whole format is about riding with a little bit of racing spice. The format just has so much upside and it feels like the word is getting out. I’m grinding this media stuff hard but still feel like I have so much room to improve.

Thanks again for the kind words guys - we’ll keep moving and moving!
 
Just some feedback to consider in the future:

I liked having C and sportsman in their own group, wouldn't mind seeing that continue if it works out.

If you guys come up with a way to let the pitbikes run a little later once the course gets worked in or at a minimum, allow for at least a pair of tractor or ATV tracks to ride in on the fresh morning prep, might make that race more sendy and less hairy. It's hard getting those little wheels through that deep lumpy dirt..lol.

Thanks again.
 
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Jack, you guys did great especially for the first season of it. I love the GP races. I’ve shifted more towards the woods since breaking myself at Huffman hills last summer, but it’s fun to get out there shred the woods and get to huck some jumps too. I hope to do more next year, bummed i couldn’t make it to malvern last weekend, but with Ironman gncc this weekend i couldn’t spare the extra money.
 
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