#AngelAtwell

As the traditional summer break of the 2012 Grand National Cross Country Series drew to a close, Team ITP was ready for the final four events on the schedule. With fresh ITP Holeshot and QuadCross tires mounted on their newly tuned quads, Team ITP was well rested and motivated at the rugged Unadilla circuit, one of the icons of powersports.

Dave Simmons ( Yamaha) once again dominated the morning race, winning the overall by close to four minutes. It was his seventh overall triumph of the season and tenth straight victory in the Super Senior 45+ class.

Also claiming a big win was Glenn McConnell (Yamaha). This Masters 50+ competitor grabbed his fifth victory of the season and in the process snuck into the points lead for the first time in 2012. After skipping the first race of the year he had been gradually moving up the leaderboard, and Unadilla would be the breakthrough.

Angel Atwell (Honda) finished eighth overall in the morning and second in the Women’s class. She is keeping things tight in this battle, down by just eight in the season points chase.

The Mountaineer Run, held at Marvin’s Mountaintop in Masontown, WV, was another new stop on the 2012 Grand National Cross Country schedule, but for many it had an old school feel. Round seven of 13 was held on a technical, rough, rocky, semi-muddy course not far from the familiar Snowshoe GNCC site. Plus it was also just good old fashioned hot, which all added up to a challenging weekend for man and machine. But Team ITP was up for it, and notched a number of victories using a variety of ITP QuadCross and Holeshot tire setups.

A most impressive display of skill and endurance was put up by Patrick McGuire (Yamaha). The Valencia, Penn. native blasted out of the first turn in first and never looked back, leading the XC2 Pro Am class from start to finish, securing his second win of the season by nearly three minutes. It was good for ninth overall out of 186 top competitors in the afternoon wave of racing, and moved him back into the points lead.

Finishing second in XC2 was Matt Hanna, backed by Greg’s ATV and running ITP tires on his Yamaha YFZ450. It was Hanna’s third podium appearance of the season, which puts him in fifth place in the class standings.

The sixth stop of 13 on the 2012 Can-Am Grand National Cross Country Series schedule this year found the ATV competitors and their supporters in Springville, in the south-central part of Indiana, for the first Limestone 100. And while many of this large crowd had never plied the woodsy, hilly trails of this venue — centered around the Lawrence County Recreation Facility — they found the conditions to be similar to what’s found at The Ironman GNCC which takes place not far from here every October.

That’s a race that Team ITP’s Adam McGill knows very well, and he put his extensive experience to good use by nearly winning at Limestone. McGill ( Honda) worked his way up from a mid-pack start to hold fifth place at the end of the first 10-mile lap, then kept the pressure on to jam into first place on lap two. The West Virginia native led the majority of the race from that point (three laps) but on the last lap he physically ran out of gas — “I started to hit a wall,” as he described it — and had to settle for a safe second overall.

It was McGill’s fourth runner-up finish of the season, and kept him in second place in the premier XC1 Pro division point standings.

This past weekend’s Big Buck GNCC, the fourth round of the Grand National Cross Country Series, featured heavy dust on a rough course with lots of hidden stumps and other nastiness lying in wait to ruin someone’s day. Several ITP-sponsored racers were able to fight through the conditions and earn a podium finish.

For the second event in a row, XC1 Pro star Adam McGill ( Honda) was able to storm back from a tough start and put himself in solid contention for the overall victory. His bid for the win came up just two seconds short after two hours of racing. This inspiring performance shot him into second place in the point standings with seven events still remaining on the long schedule.

XC2 Pro Am series leader Patrick McGuire ( Yamaha) just missed the podium with a fine fourth place and 13th overall out of 157 riders in the afternoon wave of racing. McGuire held onto his number one position in the class standings.

And how about Dave Simmons (Yamaha), who placed second overall in the morning wave while capturing yet another Super Senior 45+ class win? That’s four out of four so far, and he’s making it look easy in the process.

ITP-sponsored riders at the Steele Creek GNCC in Morganton, NC had a successful week, earning a number of podiums.

Adam McGill ( Honda) put on a come-from-behind charge on a course notorious for its narrow, hard-to-pass nature to finish second in the XC1 Pro class and second overall. The West Virginia native has now moved into third in the point standings, despite his mechanical issues at round two.

Patrick McGuire ( Yamaha) was on the course at the same time as McGill, on his way to fourth place in XC2 Pro Am. This was enough to easily keep him in the number one position in class points for the season.

After thousands of laps at 13 different locations in the eastern U.S., the 2011 Grand National Cross Country Series came to a thrilling — albeit delayed — conclusion at Loretta Lynn’s in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. This location was originally to be round five, but diabolical weather forced a rare postponement and shift to the end of the schedule. Final celebrations may have been late in coming, but in the end there were a number of ITP riders heading for happy holidays.

Foremost Insurance/Warnert Can-Am teammates Adam McGill and Chris Bithell were consistent frontrunners all season in the premier XC1 Pro class. Implementing ITP Holeshot GNCC and QuadCross XC tires, McGill won two events and stepped onto the podium eight other times to claim an excellent second overall for the year. Bithell appeared in the top three a total of six times to finish a close fourth in the final standings.

For the second time this year, ITP-mounted Adam McGill and Chris Bithell finished 1-2 in a Grand National Cross Country Series event. The Foremost Insurance/Warnert Can-Am teammates topped the Snowshoe GNCC, round eight of the 2011 series at Snowshoe Mountain Resort, some 4,800 feet high in the hills of West Virginia.

It was a big payday for McGill, as the Snowshoe GNCC rewards the winner an eye-popping $5,000 (the largest purse on the circuit). The win also moved McGill into close contention for the series championship with five events remaining on the 2011 schedule. Bithell holds third in the XC1 Pro class standings.

The key moment in the wet and sloppy race came on the last lap when McGill turned risk into reward by blasting directly through one of the many challenging mudholes while leader Bithell chose a more conservative route. McGill kept his momentum from there and finished the four-lap, two-hour race just 14 seconds ahead of Bithell. Both riders chose ITP’s Holeshot GNCC tires for the front of their Can-Am DS 450s, and ITP’s QuadCross XC tires for the rear.