Well I was sort of asked to keep silent by Chris ( the track owner ) but Seeing so many already know the truth I cant keep it in.
From the time I pulled in the gate I knew we were in for a bad day of racing with heat in the 90's. They had only starting watering the largest majority of the track that morning.I went out in the second and third practice group. The first lap of my practice I couldnt see bikes 30' ahead of me in the back section. The jump faces were chunked out wash boards the would kick your back end in any unknown direction if you missed an exact line. Unlike a rutted jump face these were dry slippery and much more difficult to hold a line on. It was obvious to me they were built with no moisture in the dirt. The landings on many of the jumps were very steep and those and the new whoop/ roller section just had a weird feeling to them.
That being said, the only real complaint I had was the prep. I could easily lived with and raced with aggression on the track had there been proper moisture in the track. But in my opinion the track prep made visibility to dangerous to ride. The accidents on the down hill jump were the result of the take off face being complete garbage but in all honesty if you slowed up and didnt jump to the down hill section you were fine. The rider had control over this but who wants to slow down if your racing just because you MIGHT get kicked funny on the take off.
I went to sign up and asked for my money back after practice, the first time in 25 years of racing. I was directed to talk to Chris. When we met he asked what my problem was with the track. I said it was too dusty and I didnt feel the track was going to hold up. I didnt want to race in these conditions. He then stated they had done a very good job with the track. At that I said ( and in hind sight it was a bit mean) If I were you I would be embarrassed about the prep. I told him I had never been to a track that had that much dust in the first practice session. At which point he made every excuse under the sun for why it was dusty. DMX153, who was right there with me says, did you water friday? Chris says .. 'no' Dave says what about saturday? Chris says 'yes' ( which later found out was only the rollers and one other corner with a hose, not the entire track). Chris said that no track could possibly water a track and have no dust in this heat. My reply was ' Briarcliff does it! ( dont get a big head Jeremy! lol) ' I then told him I would be happy if he just refunded my for one class. He proceeded to pull out his wallet and give me $20 back and asked me to ride anyway. He stated that he didnt want me to get on the internet and bash them since he refunded some money. He also asked me to ride anyway so I could see that they had a handle on it and it would be nice by race time.
I will give him credit on trying too late. A good 3 hours of the race day was spent on prepping between motos. One session was during the grass fire incident. But there wasnt near enough water put down to help let alone what should have been put down the two days prior to the event. But the most disturbing thing to me was Chris's attitude. From what DMX 153 and I got from our conversation was he truly felt they had done the best they could and it wasnt bad at all. He actually stated that they had done a very good job. I may have put him in the defensive right off the bat but that is no excuse to think those conditions were even ridable for a racing venue. If a track owner cant even admit that the conditions were poor how are they going to improve on them?
The amount of downed riders is one show of the conditions but if you can look at the final results and see that a majority of the racers left after the first set of motos that should tell everyone how poor the conditions were. Even with the long delays the day wasnt over the edge long. Sure it should have ended much sooner but I left after the 8th moto was on the track or done and it was 5 pm. they only had 7 3 lap motos left. thats about 45 mins of racing laps left. People were leaving because the conditions only got worse as the day went on.
Its too bad that the first race they held tanked so bad, its difficult to recover a bad name let alone a devistatingly terrible name. I would be hard pressed to ever return if the same people are running the facility. Maybe after two days of rain prior to the event.