2004 was the true break though year for Trackoholics.
The whole thing began snowballing in the summer of 2003 and we no longer thought about selling out the events. They were selling on their own and by 2004 I was ready to commit to working on a small race program.
Jen Ramey returned to oversee the gate, Instructors Dave Lang moved to Texas and Chuck Piotrowski spent 1/2 the year with us before leaving to go back to school. Karoline and I had been looking to make some major changes to the staff and this was as good a time as any to move forward. Matt Blom who had worked with us in 2003 left and Jeff Balla stepped into his position as track manager. The biggest change was to our instructional staff as we went from three instructors to eight.
Frank Fisher took the lead instructor position and he introduced me to the French man, Nick DeVink during the June Fireblades trackday event. Nick immediately joined the Trackoholics staff . Nick knew how to go fast and his no BS teaching style really showed the Novice group how to get around Grattan. Although his no nonsense style of teaching intimidated some it helped many others find their limit on the track. Nick and I saw trackday teaching the same way and I totally enjoyed ever moment I spent with him.
Also joining the instructional team were Kris Killen, Matt Pawluk, Matt Willis and Linus Caballa.
Trackoholics continued to be a focus of enjoyment and our customers seemed to like us more than ever. After a few deaths at other trackday events I began to rethink our crash policy. Of course I understood that just riding on the track in itself can be dangerous, however the majority of crashes seemed to stem fromriders who were riding over their heads, chasing "faster" friends" or riding past their limit or the limit of the bike. I had been talking with one of my sponsors and friend Motion Pro's guru Chris Van Andel (who also ran Zoom Zoom Trackdays out West) at the dealer show and he had told me about their "No Crash" policy and it got me to thinking. Shortly there after I instigated a no crash policy and despite a little bitching (mainly from one guy who crashed) and some forum backlash and bashing it worked and I am proud that we made a change that actually made people think before riding over their heads.
The whole deal kept crashing and downtime to a minimum and everyone got a lot more tracktime. In fact one of our customers, Dave Solo so liked our events and how well Karoline ran the program that he wrote an article for a magazine about us. Click here to view his story.
All in all Karoline, I had an awesome year with the team and our clients and looked forward to 2005. The big question for us at this point was, do we grow it bigger or leave it alone and enjoy it as it is.
As for the race team, w ho would ride was a no brainer really. Bojan Miljkovic had the tools and he was just waiting for the call. To say he had a breakout year would be an understatement as he won on multiple occations. A cool Speedvision interview at Mid Ohio after a resounding victory in the Solo 20 race and three second places finishes (after starting from the last row) at a WERA National garnered Bojan and the team a lot of attention.
He would have won multiple championships had we not started the team mid year. Missing 1/2 of the series killed those hopes and we knew it.
Despite my insane work schedule Bojan and I managed to make it a great year and him and I had a great time throughout playing off each other.
2004 was a stellar year for us. Not only was it a very profitable year money wise, we were getting sponsors from word of mouth and we felt that 2005 would be a great year for us.
