Early Report from Louisville

By the 8:10AM 35-Over Men’s Cruiser practice, the 2009 NBL Grands weekend was already getting into fill gear.  Tents were up where none had stood just 12 hours before, and familiar faces were too plentiful to keep up.  Turn in one direction, it’s Dave Miller on a mountain bike…turn another, and it’s George Costa getting the Rennen/G-Cog display dialed in.  In the distance is Burlin Harris riding in on his chrome-to-the-bone, monster touring bike that was a gift from Bubba.  Practice is smoothly underway, with the ever-present beep-beep-beep-beeeeeep, SLAM! As the soundtrack to friends and friendly competitors alike getting acquainted after a year spent on separate sides of the Mississippi.

No question that first practice is largely for gettin’ the groove down (at least for the non-locals), but a couple standouts included seeing Connor Fields back on the gate after nearly six months off, and Tyler Whitfield back from his time at the OTC and lookin good (though he admitted that after a challenging, fun-packed week riding the Chula Vista SX track, that it is hard to go back to “normal” tracks again).  Speaking of Chula Vista and JDP, also chatted briefly with Felicia Stancil who won the Girls Time Trials, despite being the youngest girl in the camp.

We’ll be sitting down for a brief interview with the Con-Man this afternoon, and will report that later today.  Between updates, keep an eye on the BMXNOW twitter updates.