Sup fools, Mark Atkins here again from @RustyButcher. Since our first debut with this hooligan column a ton of new things have been unleashed on the world that I want to keep you all up to par on. Since we last talked we had the killer opportunity to race and be actual invited athletes to this year’s X Games. We had a small window of about 30–40 minutes where we got the track to ourselves and all the hooligan riders had a little time to shine! The following day the awesome dealership, Greune Harley-Davidson, teamed up with the “Hooligan Dirt Dash” to bring us a full racetrack made especially for us at their dealership! It really doesn’t get much better than Texas BBQ, beers, tons of fans, and good ol’ fashioned Harley-Davidson’s racing around your local dealership!
We also just finished up this year’s Dirt Quake race, which is held in Castle Rock, Washington at a local track. We attended last year and this race was a blast! Tons of partying, awesome scenery, hundreds of bikes, and pretty much a class to race anything (snowmobiles could even be entered!). Dirt Quake is a killer track that is a lot more high-speed than a lot of the hooligan racers are used to. We ended up having a few casualties and some dudes went down. I would like to say get well soon to Taylor, a.k.a. @Tsdvision, who ended up getting a throttle stuck. It didn’t end well, but we will see him again soon on the track. I ended up taking a digger in the main as well. I knocked myself out and ended up with a bruised hip and some broken ribs…but hey, that’s racing.
Last but not least, we are super excited about Harley-Davidson’s partnership with Rusty Butche as well as Speed Merchant and Suicide Machine Company. Harley is now sponsoring a few Hooligan teams to help guide and make this new trend here to stay. We are stoked the factory sees and wants to support the normal guys out here trying to have fun. Hooligan racing is all about the normal Joe Schmoe who isn’t a pro and just wants to take his damn bike around a track and see what happens. I’ll maybe throw a little hint here that H-D and Rusty Butcher might be presenting a new local SoCal flat track that will soon open to the public to practice seven days a week. Hopefully this will spread around the country!

Mark Atkins #22
@RustyButcher

Photos: @jonathangriffith

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