The UMTA Awards Banquet for the 2008 season will be held on Sat. Feb. 7 at Joseph’s Grill (map here). See the PDF flyer above for details.

See the photo album from the 2007 banquet or this slideshow:

The schedule page has been updated with this list of events for next season:

THEILMAN MN
April 25th & April 26th
Don Anderson & Mark Winterer

NORTH MANKATO MN
May 3rd
Chad Sparks

THEILMAN  MN
May 23rd & May 24th
Bear & Ben Winterer

NATC/NE
May 30th & May 31st

THEILMAN MN
June 13th & June 14th
Gordy Boggie

NATC/TN
June 27th & June 28th

NATC/TN YOUTH
July 3rd – July 5th

NATC/VT
July 18th & July 19th

NATC/NY
July 25th & July 26th

NATC/CO – YOUTH
August 8th – August 10th

GILBERT MN
August 22nd & August 23rd
Randy Kimmick & Pat Hirt

MANKATO  MN – HOPPE FARM
September 13th
Rich  Hansen

HIXTON WI
September 26th & September 27th

NORTH MANKATO MN
October 10th & October 11th
Scott Booth & Adam Schmidt

THEILMAN MN
October 24th & October 25th
Brad Villand

At the October meeting of the North American Trials Council (NATC) in Dallas, the Best National of the Year award went to Minnesota.

And who is ‘Minnesota’?

Essentially, Steve Ahlers and his team of workers from both the Northland Motorcycle Riders Association (NMRA), WOTA, and the UMTA.

Longtime UMTA club member and former US Montesa importer Martin Belair and family are moving to California this fall. So last Sunday, club members gathered at Al and Jean Gohlike’s house near Faribault to send him off.

L to R in the photo: me, Eric Sette, Martin Belair, Stuart McLuckie, Al Gohlike, Scott Booth, Jim ‘Bubba’ Blount. Photo by Willie Gruette.

See the profile of Martin in the May 2002 issue of Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly.

Points/standings (PDF) as of the last events of the year in North Mankato/St. Peter. These are also the final year-end results.

Points/standings (PDF) as of the Sep/Oct events at Mankato and Theilman are now posted.

Here are some podium photos from the four events.

Jim Winterer posted this to the UMTA discussion list yesterday. I thought he summarized the last weekend’s US Nationals at Duluth (Rounds 4, 5, 6) well so it’s now a blog post.

Mr. Bear, how’s your back today?

For those on this list who weren’t able to make the nationals in Duluth this weekend, Mr. Bear had a most amazing adventure on “elephant rock” on the second day. It was a long, long way to fall, but somehow he didn’t get more hurt than quite a few extra-large ibuprophens couldn’t cure, and he came back to finish the third national event on Sunday.  Bear’s tumble was every bit as spectacular as Dougie Lampkin’s famous get-off during the ’05 world round.

Maybe we should rename “elephant rock” to “Bear’s rock,” like we have named the “my leg, it’s flopping” rock in honor of David McLuckie.

On Sunday, Ben, Brad and Bear wound up riding more or less as a group, with Bubba minding Bear and me minding Ben, and we had a major fun day. After the second loop on the third day, Brad was in a dead tie with another rider, not just for that day, but for the national title for the expert-support class. I never saw Brad ride that well; he pulled off some incredible rides for an amazing 10-point loop and won the national title with a few points to spare! Way to go Brad.

Despite riding in pain, and with a lot of heckling (including many “you idiot” and “you loser”) Bear had some great rides on what was a very challenging support line.  Gordy had a great weekend, too, and had a third-place podium finish on Sunday.

Ben found his groove on Sunday and moved up on several riders who had better scores on Friday and Saturday. There was one very large rock at the top of a hill Sunday (Section 8 where Will and Willie were scoring), which was on the expert and pro line. Ben got up it on the first loop, and we learned later he was the only rider (expert or pro) who did that all day.

The Kimmicks were well-represented on the podium for the youth trials!

Dale from Gas-Gas told me at the end of the day that the three-day national at Duluth was one of the best national events he has ever ridden, and Dale has ridden plenty. That is a major compliment. So congrats to Steve and Diane and Sara and all those who put in so much time and effort to make it happen. My brother Mark got a special award for all the time and effort he put into helping with the sections, and on top of that he and Laurie checked sections all three days.

Lots of UMTA members were up there helping or riding. All in all it was a pretty amazing weekend. The Aerostich company in Duluth celebrated its 25th anniversary with a rally that was held right at Spirit Mountain, so there was this very interesting mix of road riders and trials riders. There were hundreds of road riders at the rally (not sure exactly how many, but maybe 1,000 over the weekend), and many were camped up on the top of the ski hill. Some of them pitched tents like six inches from the loop trail. I didn’t hear that anyone got run over, so that was good.

The only gripe I had was that at the end of the national awards ceremony, Bear didn’t yell out: “It was another great day for (men, women, girls and boys) in tights.”

Points/standings (PDF) as of the 8/2 and 8/3 events (The Haggis!) at Duluth are now posted. (A password is no longer needed to access.)

Points/standings (PDF) as of the 7/19 and 7/20 events at Gilbert are now posted. (A password is no longer needed to access.)

Points/standings (PDF) as of the 6/22 event at St. Peter are now posted. (A password is no longer needed to access.)