World Trials Championship, Wagner Cup, USGP

I had some techie tasks and couldn’t get out to take photos of riders inspecting the sections this afternoon… except for these photos of Section 15 at the end the day.

Right photo: Hey, manicuring!

I was deployed on other tasks this morning and missed about half the tech inspection. But I still managed to get 3 dozen+ photos, including several of World Champ Toni Bou and many of the crop of U.S. youth riders. See the album or this slideshow:

The tech inspector team from the Rhode Island Trials Club did the inspections this morning. I’ll have a photo album/slideshow shortly but here’s the team (click photo to enlarge):

L to R: Dave Aldo, Jim Grabbert, Carl "Coach" Swanson, Jeff Salois, Bill Bonneau, Hub Brennan, Bill Mathewson, Jim Watson.

L to R: FIM’s Danilo Galeazzi, Steve Storz (Storz Performance, Inc.) and TTC’s Dan Brown at lunch today in the TTC lodge. Steve speaks Italian and Dan doesn’t so he was indispensible. I later caught them inspecting Section 15 (below).

To supplement the photos, text, and video on the Directions page, we put up signs and banners this morning at various points between the freeway and the TTC.

 
Left: Tim Cash and John Haywood, elite class sign installation engineers.
Right: We planted Sherco and GasGas banners in many spots.

Catherine Bedley’s office is now in the new TTC headquarters. (Just don’t call it ‘the shop.’)

Center photo: Catherine at about 11 am this morning, showing off the one and only 2008 FIM SPEA Trial World Championship hat on the premises.

From the deck of the TTC lodge, I zoomed in on the area of the grounds where some of the factory teams have already set up. I’ll get more photos later today. My next task is to help get directional signs and banners put up at various points from the freeway to here. See the Directions page for a preview.

Things have greened up considerably here at the TTC since I was here a month ago for Trials Training Days. I took these photos of the lodge this morning around 8:30.

Right: The original owners of the Trials Training Center were Tony and Laura Bussing. They now live in Colorado. Tony is now a dog behavior consultant.

Weather for today and Friday: mostly sunny, highs in the mid-70s.

While I was blogging tonight in the TTC lodge, event organizers Catherine Bedley and Dan Brown were having a logistics and planning meeting, going over the hundreds of details for this weekend’s really big show.

Lists, lists, and more lists!

See this schedule/timetable of events (PDF) for the weekend.

Here’s a PDF site map of the Trials Training Center property and the location of the sections.

Preparations are at a fever pitch in Tennessee as the TTC gets ready to host the 2008 Wagner Cup, rounds 3 & 4 of the FIM Spea Trial World Championship.

We’ll have a new shop building ready for all the official functions and scoring.

The course is set, sections roughed out in my head and mostly cleared but a lot of work remains to get ready. 12 of the 15 sections will be very close by, with some spectacular new stuff near Bilbao falls. The Mother of All Hillclimbs will return, only this year it goes to the TOP! 3 of the sections will be for the hardy hikers, but well worth the visit to the top of the mountain at the 60ft high Lampkin falls; this is the most stunning and scenic spot on the property and not to be missed.

Our latest addition to the TTC fleet is a Suzuki Samurai, which can haul chainsaws, generator, hammer drill, and is used to traverse to almost anywhere; I think Charlie’s fingerprints are embedded into the dash from our last trip up to Lampkin falls with it.

We also have added some property composed of a nice grassy field adjacent to the spring, which will be excellent for camping. We still have some spots available for observers; a full weekend pass is provided to folks who can observe one day during the weekend or 10 passes for a club willing to host a section.

Mark your calendars and don’t miss the trials event of the year!