The track to be reformed was the main motocross track. It lay on both sides of a gravel drive that lead from the gate up to the house. The hillside it lay on was grassy with a number of trees scattered across the slope. The soil was a loose clay that pushed around quite easily and on first glance it was a very pretty track. The instructions were to create a GP style circuit that Mark's son Zach could train on throughout the winter and asked that it include all the typical GP style obstacles that Zach would have to face the following season.

Around a day was taken coming up with a design before the work began with a D6 bulldozer. At the end of the first day the work had mostly been done around the edge of the forest that bordered the track. The day had been spent poking the track in and around the trees to create the first couple of loops. Mark came over and immediately showed concern in the loss of grass. Its pretty hard to reroute a track without taking grass and obviously to landscape the edges of a track you need to remove more as well. This was pretty much his 'garden' however, and it was no surprise that driving into the property each day to the sight of huge patches of brown either side of the road, was causing him great concern. The current design for the track clearly had to change.

I was a little backed into a corner having started the initial design. Coming up with a new design that would follow as much of the old track as possible whilst still incorporating the work I had already done was a massive headache. Work continued, and whilst I was never quite happy with how the job was going I was always comforted by the ease at which the soil shaped up and the stunning scenery. The Virginian autumn reminded me a lot of back home in Scotland, just without the wind and rain.

One of the interesting parts of this job was the fact that the track crossed the main driveway and two jumps had to be formed to ensure that the bikes would not touch the gravel. As the track came to a finish the sides of the obstacles were prepped with a 277B tracked loader. there's always a fine line between what works and what doesn't, and whilst I never thought it was quite perfect, it was still a very special track and a lot of fun to ride. The track looked good enough to eat your dinner off and once the work of smoothing it all off had taken place Mark had all the dirt areas around the track hydraseeded. A method used in big construction to spray areas like motorway embankments. Partialy germinated grass seed and tiny bits of wet paper not only help the grass to grow immediately but help it stick to the ground so it doesn't washed off. It looked like the ground was covered in a heavy frost. and I'm sure once the grass was fully grown it would have looked stunning.