Shortly after the 2006 Millville National, I wrote my first letter to a magazine. I sent a short question to the Ask Ping column that used to appear in RacerXOnline.com. A few days later, I was surprised to see that it was printed unchanged and then answered by Supercross the Movie supporting actor, David Pingree.

As published, August 25, 2006:

I'm cable-impaired, so I just saw my first national on TV this year with the Millville round. Thanks for mentioning Donny Schmit in the telecast, even if the other announcer kind of interrupted you and changed the subject. We Minnesotans are pretty proud to have a two-time world champion who was from here, and we still miss him a lot. If you really want to tweak the locals next year, try to work in a Tom Benolkin reference.

My question is about the play-by-play guy (I could look up his name if I was more ambitious). Does he talk like that all the time or does he turn it off when he's not in the booth? I have visions of him being in a restaurant calling the play-by-play of the wait staff, but then again, my mind is a terrible thing.

Bob Chase. Curator, MXBob.com

Dear Bob
You can’t talk about Millville and not mention Donny Schmit. I didn’t know him that well, but I’ve never met anyone that had a bad thing to say about the guy. You lost me on the Tom Benolkin reference, though. Unless he’s a 68-year-old physics professor from Maine, because that’s what I got when I Googled him.

To answer your question, Brian Drebber’s voice is much different when he’s not on camera. His real voice sounds exactly like Carmine from the old television show Laverne and Shirley. How’s that for an obscure reference?
PING

If he was being serious, I was a bit surprised that he hadn’t heard of Tom Benolkin, a Minnesota rider that was factory Kawasaki in the early 80s and is still tearing it up at vintage races. If he is an "obscure reference" as Ping put it, at least he was a motorcycle racer and not a character in some lame 1970s TV show.