WTA Club News for January

Well gang, it’s new a brand new year and it’s time to get riding again! We finished up 2008 with a terrific banquet feasting on oriental cuisine in Spanish Fork. They gave us the whole place for the night for the festivities, and we pretty much filled it up. It was a great time. If you missed it…you 5’d” it for sure! The bench racing was great, food was great, and as everyone hoped for, we were treated to another Stanley Light and Magic Show with the annual Stan “the candid camera man” McVey WTA slide show extravaganza, and as usual, it was a hoot!

This year’s banquet had some great awards too, and had everyone wishing they had ridden a lot better than most of us did, as the 1^st place rider in each class was awarded their #1 class plate along with a new Dunlop rear tire. I’m not sure how many of them were given away exactly, but there was quite a herd of them new round black rubber things corralled up there to be given away that night. It’s unknown at press time exactly where those tires came from. Some said Santa brought them, some said it may have been a Trials elf, but there a rumor running around that they were actually donated by another new gun in town, European Dirt of West Valley City, UT. At press time I don’t know a whole lot about that gun slinger’s outfit, but I’ll bet we’re going to hear more. Big kudos and thanks to him and also to the other outfits who have always been there through thick and thin to back up the club and those riders who ride for the WTA brand; NUTS (Northern Utah Trials Supply) in West Point, ThumbsUP! Trials Supply in Provo, and OC (Outta Control) Trials Supply in Salt Lake. These are the guys who support the club and help you keep them horses healthy, so make sure you support them! Info about them can be found by clicking on their logos at the bottom of the utahtrials.com web page.

The Rider of the Year award for 2008 went to a very deserving Troy Steineckert and the most improved rider went to John Borg. The class champs for 2008 are

Beginner: Bailey Nielson
Novice: Sam Davenport
Sportsman: Kendal Flitton
Sen. Sportsman: Steve Moosman
Intermediate: Jake Cocanour
Sen. Intermediate: Byron Okubo
Advanced: John Lee
Sen. Advanced: Steve Davis
Expert: Rick Johnson
Champ: Troy Steineckert

We figured he’d done such a good job of it in 2008, we decided to make Chris Trease do it again in 2009, so he’s gonna ramrod the outfit again for 2009. Byron Okubo is going to make sure we keep our loot straight again. The rest of the 2009 Steering Committee is

John Weiss
John Borg
Rick Johnson
Lucas Agee
Troy Steineckert

We voted on it at the banquet and decided the club wanted to have a couple of two day meets this year, at Cedar City in June 13/14 and at Loa in August 15/16. So there’ll be a total of 13 meets for 2009. You have to be a WTA member to get points at the meets. WTA members will need to ride 8 meets (50% +1) to qualify for a free number plate and class 1^st place award.  It also means that 10 of the 13 (80%) will count towards year end points which means if you can ride really crappy only three times this year.  This year there will be trophies awarded for 1st through 3rd place for qualifying riders in every class for the year end results at the 2009 banquet.

Our January meet will be just outside of St. George, UT at Pachoon Gulch. If you’ve never ridden there, Pachoon Gulch is a primo place to ride offering some spectacular riding and scenery. Pachoon Gulch is on lands administrated by the BLM, so let's make sure we leave the place cleaner than we found it! Signup will start a little earlier than usual, beginning at 8:00 am so we can get the club memberships and liability waivers taken care of.

Here’s what the rest of the schedule will look like. Except in case of disaster, the dates shouldn’t change, but the locations could, so make sure you check the utahtrials.com web page often to see if there are any updates.

January 24th Pachoon Gulch
February 28th Moab (need marshals)

March 28th Kanab (need marshals)

April 18th Little Moab
May 16th Emery
June 13th/14th 3-peaks 2 day meet (need marshals both days)
July 18th Powder Mt. Jorgensen cup!
August 15th/16th Loa 2 day meet
September 19th Red Creek Bunker cup!
October 17th Desert Mt.
November 7th Elberta (need marshals)
December 5th Banquet
5moh? TBA

We still need marshals for some of the meets (see the above schedule) so get of your lazy keesters, cowboy up and help set a meet. You get 1^st place points for being a Trials Marshal!

Utah’s Presents

The Trials Shootout at

Pachoon Gulch

Where: ST George, UT When: January 24 Time: 10 AM - 4 PM Cleanup: 4:00 – 4:30 Awards: 4:30 – 5:00 Sign up: 8:00 – 9:40 Riders Meeting: 9:45 – 10:00

First Time Riders: $10 Children under 12: $10 Dependent children 12 and up: $15 Adult Members: $20 Non-members: $30

WTA Yearly Membership Fees:

Single: $20 Family: $30

CLASSES:

NOVICE, SPORTSMAN, WOMEN, SENIOR SPORSTMAN, INTERMEDIATE, SENIOR INTERMEDIATE,

ADVANCED, SENIOR ADVANCED, EXPERT B, EXPERT, CHAMP

MAP

For info on the Wasatch Trials Association

e-mail UtahTrials at

utahtrials@yahoo.com