| 1999 Race Reports |
 |  |  |
October 17, 1999
White City, Illinois
DNF
This was another of those races where nothing seemed to go right. This enduro is
put on by a club where I've raced several times before. At signup, they let us pick
which row we wanted to start on. I chose an earlier row because the area had
received some rain during the week, and after the previous mud race there in June
and my experience of being on the last row in Marietta, I didn't want to get stuck riding
through everyone else's ruts. My choice of the 5th row turned out to be bad...more on
that later. Again, I was running way behind in getting set up, and had to throw
everything together with only a minute or two to spare. The trails turned out to be in
excellent condition, so a 5th row position was not really necessary. The summer had
been so dry that any rainfall had been soaked right up. The problem was that the
trails were not marked very well, and there weren't many other riders ahead of me to
make the trail easier to see. I kept having to stop and look around for the familiar
orange arrows and lost time in the process. About 5 miles into the race, my right
contact lens started drying out big time and eventually it fell out. I was able to pull it
out of my goggles and get it back in my eye, but lost a couple of minutes.
The course went through most of the club grounds before heading out to a road. The
arrows were very sparse, and I got lost a couple more times. By the time I got to the
next woods section, I was actually late. That should never happen when the route is
going over paved roads, so it goes to show how poorly marked the course was. Also,
some of the mileage markers posted at different places were way off what my
odometer showed, so I had to make several adjustments. The second woods
section was marked even worse than the first. Plus, there were no established trails.
Normally, these types of "virgin" trails are great, but most of the time I couldn't tell
where I was supposed to go. It's hard enough to concentrate on avoiding
obstacles...searching for orange arrows added more difficulties.
At one point I hit a gully pretty hard and noticed that my crotch was cold and wet. I
don't normally wet my pants while riding, so I stopped to see what the problem was.
Turns out the valve on the end of my drinking water hose had come off, and water was
being siphoned out of the tube and onto my pants. We're talking ice water here, in a
very sensitive place. Wasn't quite as bad as gasoline, though.
After a long road section the route took us back into the woods. I was riding
moderately well, and except for getting lost about 50 times and losing my contact
lens, I was having a decent race. That is, until I missed a turn and found myself
heading straight for a 3-foot ledge that dropped into a creek. I panicked, of course,
and didn't do anything except ride down into the creek bed. When the front wheel
dropped down, the sudden stop bucked me over the handlebars and I fell to the
ground. No problem so far. Then the bike flipped over on top of me and knocked the
wind out of me. Houston, we have a problem. When I tried to breathe, it was like a
knife was stuck in my left side. After about minute of uncontrolled gasping, I caught
my breath but the pain didn't go away. It didn't take me long to figure out I was banged
up pretty good and my race was over. First, I had to get the bike off my legs (intense
pain). Then I had to stand up (extreme pain). Then I had to get the bike back on its
wheels (unbearable pain...took a couple tries). Then I had to get the engine started
again (pain is pain, by now). I got back on the trail after having served as a human
warning notice to all the other riders that had passed by and barely missed making
the same mistake. I limped along in 1st gear, hoping that sometime soon the trail
would get me out of the woods and take me back to a road. Every hill, every log
crossing, every bump for that matter, was mind-numbingly painful. After a couple
miles of torture, the trail led me to the next checkpoint, where I told the guys I was
done and asked for directions back to the setup area. They sent me back towards the
town of Mt. Olive. I rode right through downtown in full riding gear while receiving
strange stares from the residents.
Back at the setup area, I painfully loaded up my bike and gear and set in for the ride
home. Fortunately, the club was only an hour from my apartment, but I couldn't find a
comfortable driving position. My shoulder was giving me a sharp pain that wouldn't
go away. The ribs were just sore in general, and my right hand was bruised. At
home, I called up Rob Rogers and he came over with his wife Cyndi to help unload.
Rob wasn't in much better shape than me because he had just torn his abdominal
muscles while working out. What a worthless pair we were. They insisted that I go to
the emergency room to get checked out. I felt bad that they had to waste the better
part of their Sunday afternoon sitting in the waiting area while I had x-rays and a CAT
scan. Diagnosis: broken ribs. I took off work the next day and began the long road to
recovery.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's how my racing season ended. I won the most trophies ever (4), at the
expense of my body. The new KTM didn't look so new, and the cost of keeping it
in one piece drained my bank account. I ended up in 12th place in the Missouri
Hare Scrambles series, top-5 in the Southern Illinois hare scrambles series, and
somehow managed a 10th place in the D-17 enduro series for Open B (White City
was the only time I raced the Open B class). My best season yet.
White City, Illinois
DNF
This was another of those races where nothing seemed to go right. This enduro is
put on by a club where I've raced several times before. At signup, they let us pick
which row we wanted to start on. I chose an earlier row because the area had
received some rain during the week, and after the previous mud race there in June
and my experience of being on the last row in Marietta, I didn't want to get stuck riding
through everyone else's ruts. My choice of the 5th row turned out to be bad...more on
that later. Again, I was running way behind in getting set up, and had to throw
everything together with only a minute or two to spare. The trails turned out to be in
excellent condition, so a 5th row position was not really necessary. The summer had
been so dry that any rainfall had been soaked right up. The problem was that the
trails were not marked very well, and there weren't many other riders ahead of me to
make the trail easier to see. I kept having to stop and look around for the familiar
orange arrows and lost time in the process. About 5 miles into the race, my right
contact lens started drying out big time and eventually it fell out. I was able to pull it
out of my goggles and get it back in my eye, but lost a couple of minutes.
The course went through most of the club grounds before heading out to a road. The
arrows were very sparse, and I got lost a couple more times. By the time I got to the
next woods section, I was actually late. That should never happen when the route is
going over paved roads, so it goes to show how poorly marked the course was. Also,
some of the mileage markers posted at different places were way off what my
odometer showed, so I had to make several adjustments. The second woods
section was marked even worse than the first. Plus, there were no established trails.
Normally, these types of "virgin" trails are great, but most of the time I couldn't tell
where I was supposed to go. It's hard enough to concentrate on avoiding
obstacles...searching for orange arrows added more difficulties.
At one point I hit a gully pretty hard and noticed that my crotch was cold and wet. I
don't normally wet my pants while riding, so I stopped to see what the problem was.
Turns out the valve on the end of my drinking water hose had come off, and water was
being siphoned out of the tube and onto my pants. We're talking ice water here, in a
very sensitive place. Wasn't quite as bad as gasoline, though.
After a long road section the route took us back into the woods. I was riding
moderately well, and except for getting lost about 50 times and losing my contact
lens, I was having a decent race. That is, until I missed a turn and found myself
heading straight for a 3-foot ledge that dropped into a creek. I panicked, of course,
and didn't do anything except ride down into the creek bed. When the front wheel
dropped down, the sudden stop bucked me over the handlebars and I fell to the
ground. No problem so far. Then the bike flipped over on top of me and knocked the
wind out of me. Houston, we have a problem. When I tried to breathe, it was like a
knife was stuck in my left side. After about minute of uncontrolled gasping, I caught
my breath but the pain didn't go away. It didn't take me long to figure out I was banged
up pretty good and my race was over. First, I had to get the bike off my legs (intense
pain). Then I had to stand up (extreme pain). Then I had to get the bike back on its
wheels (unbearable pain...took a couple tries). Then I had to get the engine started
again (pain is pain, by now). I got back on the trail after having served as a human
warning notice to all the other riders that had passed by and barely missed making
the same mistake. I limped along in 1st gear, hoping that sometime soon the trail
would get me out of the woods and take me back to a road. Every hill, every log
crossing, every bump for that matter, was mind-numbingly painful. After a couple
miles of torture, the trail led me to the next checkpoint, where I told the guys I was
done and asked for directions back to the setup area. They sent me back towards the
town of Mt. Olive. I rode right through downtown in full riding gear while receiving
strange stares from the residents.
Back at the setup area, I painfully loaded up my bike and gear and set in for the ride
home. Fortunately, the club was only an hour from my apartment, but I couldn't find a
comfortable driving position. My shoulder was giving me a sharp pain that wouldn't
go away. The ribs were just sore in general, and my right hand was bruised. At
home, I called up Rob Rogers and he came over with his wife Cyndi to help unload.
Rob wasn't in much better shape than me because he had just torn his abdominal
muscles while working out. What a worthless pair we were. They insisted that I go to
the emergency room to get checked out. I felt bad that they had to waste the better
part of their Sunday afternoon sitting in the waiting area while I had x-rays and a CAT
scan. Diagnosis: broken ribs. I took off work the next day and began the long road to
recovery.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
So that's how my racing season ended. I won the most trophies ever (4), at the
expense of my body. The new KTM didn't look so new, and the cost of keeping it
in one piece drained my bank account. I ended up in 12th place in the Missouri
Hare Scrambles series, top-5 in the Southern Illinois hare scrambles series, and
somehow managed a 10th place in the D-17 enduro series for Open B (White City
was the only time I raced the Open B class). My best season yet.
White City, Illinois