Headworks Update
By Dan Nitzel, NOHVA Business Manager
Our 31st Jamboree was a great success! It resulted in a record crowd of about 1800 riders. We were concerned about the attendance as the weather was very rainy a week prior to the event. In the seven days prior to the jamboree, local rain amounts were about five inches. If the event was held a few days earlier, it would have been called off as the parking areas would have been unusable. Granted the parking areas were very muddy during the event, they were much worse a few days before and the weekend before.
There were only two injures reported during the event. People did a pretty good job of picking up trash, with a few exceptions that I will mention later. Most people liked the new location for the drag races.
Some people asked what I could do about the mud on the entrance trail. We are planning a way to stabilize the entrance trail, maybe with white rock or crushed concrete. Of course this all depends upon how much we have in the NOHVA treasury to spend. We are looking for anyone who may be interested in bidding on improving the entrance trail. The bid would involve them providing equipment to improve the trail and/or providing material to stabilize portions of the entrance trail. Any suggestions are appreciated, and anyone willing to bid on the entrance trail project should contact me by phone or email about it before December 1st. The cost of the improvements will be paid out of the NOHVA treasury.
It would also be nice to see some improvements in water drainage to the main parking area.
We have been talking about purchasing a set of drag race timing lights and finish line displays before the spring 2008 Jamboree. I am asking for help with this. The total cost will be about $6000. A potential plan would be to ask for donations augmented with matching funds from the NOHVA treasury if the Board of Directors approves of the plan. Rex Simms of Grand Island has donated the first $100.00 to the project! See a separate article in this newsletter for more information. Another plan may involve arranging sponsors for the lights. If we can get about eight to twelve sponsors at $500 each, we could have the lights for the next jamboree.
I would like to mention that even though the parking and camping areas were quite muddy, most people took it in stride. However, there were some people who choose to abuse things. I found it disturbing to watch people in the overflow pasture purposely “mud bog”. Most of the people I witnessed tearing around and mud bogging in the pasture were there with free arm bands and stated that they did not want to support the event. Typically, we get about 150 of these people every jamboree and they are almost always the ones we have trouble with or have to pick up after. I found it disturbing that many in the overflow parking area did not think about talking to the hell raisers trying to get stuck and such to tone it down a bit. If you owned the pasture property and you saw people tearing it up for “fun”, would you be a bit angry? The land owners did not have to rent the land to us. If I owned it and would have witnessed the pickups and ATVs tearing around doing cookies in the mud and “trying” to get buried on my land, I’d be pretty darn leery of ever renting it out again. We really can’t have the Jamboree if we can’t have the overflow land.
Granted, we should have explained things better to those who use the overflow pasture and we should have had a plan on how to handle the mud. If we had a plan, most likely there would have been a lot less mud bogging and cookie spinning. So, in reality, the entire mess falls upon my shoulders as I run the event and should have addressed it different. I apologize to the land owner for not handling this in a better manner, and we will try to do better in the future if we can still use your pasture. We would like to give a BIG THANK YOU to Steve Kouma, Brandon Kouma, Tim Navrkal and Bryan Gregor of Columbus for spending a couple of days using their own equipment and grass seed to repair the overflow pasture following the event.
The camp fire thing is getting out of hand. It took us a while to clean the broken glass and empty cans out of the camp fires. Also people bury their trash in the camp fire holes, which is not acceptable. We are also getting too many holes from the fires. Fire rings would be much better.
I would also like to personally apologize to the two young men riding Honda Pilots that were spinning cookies in the mud in the pasture. While you should have known better, when I accosted you about it I should have been a bit more “cool headed”.
We would like to thank the fine people who defecated into plastic bags and threw the plastic bags in the water and mud. Gary Gibbs fished the black trash bags out of the mud and tried to keep your waste off of him. It was a mess.
This is what I recommend to the Headworks Chapter officers and the land owner to help avoid problems in the future. We will discuss them at the Annual Meeting in January.
§ Limit access to the pasture only to those that purchased arm bands. No one will be allowed in the pasture with a free arm band or no arm band. Those with a free arm band or no arm will be asked to leave or move to another area, even if the other areas are full. If they don’t leave, they will be ticketed for trespassing or arrested and their machines or vehicles impounded. If there is no more room anywhere else, those without paid arm bands still cannot park or be in the pasture.
§ People on ATVs, dirtbikes or in motor vehicles can travel in the pasture only to and from their parked vehicles and to the trails. The exception to this is for security and event officials. Kids cannot ride around the pasture just for the sake of riding.
§ The speed limit in the pasture is 10 mph. No tire spinning.
§ Fires will be limited only to fire rings of no more than 36” in diameter. We hope to have fire rings on hand for the pasture from NOHVA. No holes will be dug for camp fires. Those using fire rings must clean them out. No burning of non-combustible trash in any fire such as bottles and cans.
§ No fireworks. No defecating in the pasture, restrooms are provided.
§ All trash must be picked up. Those who fail to pick up trash will be ticketed for illegal dumping.
More about the next Jamboree will be discussed at the Headworks Chapter meeting planned for January 20th 2008 at the Conestoga Mall meeting room located at US Highway 281 and 13th street Grand Island.
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