| 2000 Race Reports |
May 21, 2000
St. Joe State Park
Park Hills, Missouri
3rd of 10 in Open B
This race was the annual St. Joe enduro, the same one that just about killed me last
year with 72 miles of rocks. This year I was more prepared, starting with
pre-registering by mail, downloading the route sheet from the BlackJack Enduro
website, making my own roll chart with all the speed changes, and finally, showing
up on time for the start of the race. I arose early at 5:00 a.m. and was on the road by
5:30 (probably a new record for me). I had planned on riding with Matt Sellers, but he
had a work conflict and couldn't go. However, he had ridden at St. Joe the day before
and the course was already marked, so he scouted the part of the course that was
inside the park boundaries and called me the night before with a few tips ("Watch out
for the rocks"...ya think?). When I arrived at the sign-in, I saw my name already written
in on row #4, and at that point nobody had chosen the earlier rows. It's usually not
ideal to be among the first groups to start the race, because sometimes the trails are
not very well defined and you have to totally rely on looking ahead at the arrows to see
where you're supposed to go.
After my pre-race dump, I was feeling good as I pulled up to the starting area. My
group of 3 riders was the first to go into the course. One of the guys was a 250B rider
and the other was pretty much a recreational rider. In fact, after the start I never saw
him again. The first few miles were pretty tame, with a 15 mph speed average. Later
it increased to 18 mph, and then 24 mph. I managed to crash during the slow
section, but no damage was done to bike or body. Conditions were a bit dusty, but
being on the first row meant that there weren't too many people ahead of me to stir up
the dirt.
The course was very open and fast for an enduro, and I was pleased to see that I
wasn't dropping very many points at the checks. Plus, at the resets I actually had
some time to stop and rest (unlike last year). So either the course was faster this
year or I was riding better. The only incident I had was when a tree limb pulled off the
little door that holds in the roll-off tape on my goggles, so for a while I had a three-foot
trail of clear plastic streaming behind me. Luckily the trails were dry and I didn't really
need the roll-off tape anyway. The course was set up just like last year, with a
40-mile loop that the "A" riders did twice and the "C" riders did once. The "B" riders
like me had a cut-off about 27 miles into the second loop. The last part of the loop
was very rocky, but because of the cut-off I only had to do that part once. In between
loops the reset gave me about 20 minutes to rest, look over the bike, and have a
snack. Again, it was a nice change from last year where I barely had time to gas up
before heading back to the trail.
The second loop was mostly uneventful, but I started to get tired about 5 miles from
the end. Even so, I finished with a score of 21, which was the lowest I'd ever carded.
Too bad everyone else had low scores too. The overall winner had a score of 6! I
didn't stick around to wait for the scores to be posted because I had been the first of
the "A" and "B" riders to finish and didn't feel like waiting a few hours for everyone else
to finish and for the scores to be calculated (the scoring process takes forever). The
BlackJack website had the results posted a couple weeks later. Overall, it was a fun
race that didn't beat me up nearly as badly as the year before. After doing about 10 or
so enduros, I'm finally getting decent at the timekeeping thing. After every reset there
were checks within a mile, and I was on time for every one. That was a good feeling.
Check out this race picture.
May 28, 2000
Kingman, Indiana
10th of 17 in Big B
Three inches of rain in the two days leading up to this race made things very
interesting. I walked some of the course beforehand and it reminded me a lot of the
Keen farm where I used to ride. Very tight with lots of weeds and grass, trees spaced
very close together. One very nasty off-camber section was taken out because if one
rider got hung up, there was no way around. And with conditions as they were, there
were bound to be some hang-ups. While I was walking the course, the minibikes
were doing their parade lap. After the main group passed by, I suddenly heard a
desperate cry for help from one of the riders, over and over again, so desperate that it
seemed he must have been trapped under his minibike. I finally found the little guy
and he had lost momentum going up a hill and couldn't get started again. A "sweep"
guy came around and we helped him get up the hill. I found another little guy (even
smaller than the first one) who had fallen over and couldn't get the bike started. I tried
to start it for him but the darn engine wouldn't fire. His dad finally found us and
started the bike after one kick...after he flipped off the kill switch (duh!!).
The race started amid a rain shower that lasted just long enough for my goggles to
fog up, so they came off before the end of the first lap. I got off to a decent start but
lost about 10 places when two guys in front of me tangled up and crashed. About 5
minutes later we arrived at what seemed like the main check, except they pointed us
back to the starting area and said there would be a re-start. Apparently someone got
off the course and several others followed (including me). Riders were meeting each
other head-on, so for safety reasons they made the wise decision to start over. Some
of the riders were none too happy, particularly one guy who went ballistic with a tirade
of profanity directed at a couple of the club members. If it had been me listening to
that, I probably would have sent the guy home. But the club should have known that
homemade arrows (triangle-shaped paper with two orange dots spray painted on
them) would cause problems. And as I've seen before, it doesn't work well when a
club tries to run the minis and quads in a simultaneous race prior to the bike race (on
separate courses), and then combine the two courses for the motorcycles.
After what seemed like forever, they finally restarted us for a 1.5-hour race. Most of
the course was rideable except for a couple of nasty creek crossings and an uphill
out of a ravine. I didn't really get hung up on any of it, and there were plenty of people
helping with the creek crossings. The only problem I had was a close encounter with
a tree branch that hit me near my right eye. If my goggles had been on, I wouldn't
have even felt it. When the race ended and I had a chance to look at it, it didn't look
good. I went over to the ambulance to see if the EMT's had something to clean and
sterilize the cut, but I think they were there more for show than for anything else. I
asked them a few questions, like "Do I need stitches?" and "Are you old enough to
drive this ambulance?" and the best they could do was give me a tiny alcohol pad and
a huge, face-sized bandage. Let's see, I've got a bloody half-inch cut about one inch
from my eye, and I get a 4 inch square bandage and a sterile pad just large enough
to clean a small pimple. So I used some leftover water from the CamelBak and an
old Dairy Queen napkin from the glove box and cleaned it up real good. A few days
later I had a nice black eye, my first one ever.
June 4, 2000
White City, Illinois
2nd of 11 in Open B
Oh, so close. After two hours of racing I was less than a minute behind the leader in
my class. Less than one minute from victory. If I hadn't got caught taking a shortcut
through the woods, I might have won, but more on that later. Matt and I went together
and both signed up for the Open B class of the SOIL (S. Illinois) series. White City is
one of four clubs that hosts one or two races each year as part of a regional hare
scrambles series (Belleville's race was also part of this series). When we arrived
and walked part of the course, it looked to be in perfect condition, unlike the previous
year when it was hot and very muddy. I've ridden in both good and bad conditions
here, so I was very pleased to see that I would only be fighting my spodely riding
skills and nothing else.
Naturally, 20 minutes before the race the skies let loose for a brief, moderate rain
shower. Not much accumulation, but just enough to make the trail very slippery.
When our row started, my tire spun in the wet grass and Matt took off ahead of me.
The rain continued just long enough to render my goggles useless, so for the second
week in a row I rode most of the race with no eye protection. My shiner from the
previous week was still noticeable, and as the race progressed I was having visions
of unseen tree branches poking my eyes out. Fortunately that didn't happen, but on
each of the three laps I got hung up on some obstacle. On the first lap I didn't make it
up a steep hill and lost about 5 minutes getting restarted. On lap 2, a tricky
off-camber had deteriorated to impassible, so the wasted time and energy cost me
more time. The third lap might have been my fastest, since the trails were more
tacky, but some of the sections were getting torn up and guys were getting hung up
on some of the hills. At one of those hills, I took an alternate path to avoid a downed
rider, which took me right to a bunch of club guys who told me to turn around, but I
didn't think I had cut the course and just kept going. Apparently I was wrong and they
wrote down my number and docked me one minute on my overall time. After the race
was done and the scores posted, I questioned the scorekeeper about the minute
added to my time. I think several guys got caught doing the same thing I did and had
already complained, so by the time I talked to the guy his patience was running out.
He wasn't too friendly and told me that if I kept pushing the issue I might not get
second place, or any place at all, so I just walked away. The incident kind of took
away some of the good feelings I had from placing second, so I grabbed my trophy
and went home with Matt (he got 4th), who kept saying "Every time I go with you to an
Illinois race it rains the whole time...."
St. Joe State Park
Park Hills, Missouri
3rd of 10 in Open B
This race was the annual St. Joe enduro, the same one that just about killed me last
year with 72 miles of rocks. This year I was more prepared, starting with
pre-registering by mail, downloading the route sheet from the BlackJack Enduro
website, making my own roll chart with all the speed changes, and finally, showing
up on time for the start of the race. I arose early at 5:00 a.m. and was on the road by
5:30 (probably a new record for me). I had planned on riding with Matt Sellers, but he
had a work conflict and couldn't go. However, he had ridden at St. Joe the day before
and the course was already marked, so he scouted the part of the course that was
inside the park boundaries and called me the night before with a few tips ("Watch out
for the rocks"...ya think?). When I arrived at the sign-in, I saw my name already written
in on row #4, and at that point nobody had chosen the earlier rows. It's usually not
ideal to be among the first groups to start the race, because sometimes the trails are
not very well defined and you have to totally rely on looking ahead at the arrows to see
where you're supposed to go.
After my pre-race dump, I was feeling good as I pulled up to the starting area. My
group of 3 riders was the first to go into the course. One of the guys was a 250B rider
and the other was pretty much a recreational rider. In fact, after the start I never saw
him again. The first few miles were pretty tame, with a 15 mph speed average. Later
it increased to 18 mph, and then 24 mph. I managed to crash during the slow
section, but no damage was done to bike or body. Conditions were a bit dusty, but
being on the first row meant that there weren't too many people ahead of me to stir up
the dirt.
The course was very open and fast for an enduro, and I was pleased to see that I
wasn't dropping very many points at the checks. Plus, at the resets I actually had
some time to stop and rest (unlike last year). So either the course was faster this
year or I was riding better. The only incident I had was when a tree limb pulled off the
little door that holds in the roll-off tape on my goggles, so for a while I had a three-foot
trail of clear plastic streaming behind me. Luckily the trails were dry and I didn't really
need the roll-off tape anyway. The course was set up just like last year, with a
40-mile loop that the "A" riders did twice and the "C" riders did once. The "B" riders
like me had a cut-off about 27 miles into the second loop. The last part of the loop
was very rocky, but because of the cut-off I only had to do that part once. In between
loops the reset gave me about 20 minutes to rest, look over the bike, and have a
snack. Again, it was a nice change from last year where I barely had time to gas up
before heading back to the trail.
The second loop was mostly uneventful, but I started to get tired about 5 miles from
the end. Even so, I finished with a score of 21, which was the lowest I'd ever carded.
Too bad everyone else had low scores too. The overall winner had a score of 6! I
didn't stick around to wait for the scores to be posted because I had been the first of
the "A" and "B" riders to finish and didn't feel like waiting a few hours for everyone else
to finish and for the scores to be calculated (the scoring process takes forever). The
BlackJack website had the results posted a couple weeks later. Overall, it was a fun
race that didn't beat me up nearly as badly as the year before. After doing about 10 or
so enduros, I'm finally getting decent at the timekeeping thing. After every reset there
were checks within a mile, and I was on time for every one. That was a good feeling.
Check out this race picture.
May 28, 2000
Kingman, Indiana
10th of 17 in Big B
Three inches of rain in the two days leading up to this race made things very
interesting. I walked some of the course beforehand and it reminded me a lot of the
Keen farm where I used to ride. Very tight with lots of weeds and grass, trees spaced
very close together. One very nasty off-camber section was taken out because if one
rider got hung up, there was no way around. And with conditions as they were, there
were bound to be some hang-ups. While I was walking the course, the minibikes
were doing their parade lap. After the main group passed by, I suddenly heard a
desperate cry for help from one of the riders, over and over again, so desperate that it
seemed he must have been trapped under his minibike. I finally found the little guy
and he had lost momentum going up a hill and couldn't get started again. A "sweep"
guy came around and we helped him get up the hill. I found another little guy (even
smaller than the first one) who had fallen over and couldn't get the bike started. I tried
to start it for him but the darn engine wouldn't fire. His dad finally found us and
started the bike after one kick...after he flipped off the kill switch (duh!!).
The race started amid a rain shower that lasted just long enough for my goggles to
fog up, so they came off before the end of the first lap. I got off to a decent start but
lost about 10 places when two guys in front of me tangled up and crashed. About 5
minutes later we arrived at what seemed like the main check, except they pointed us
back to the starting area and said there would be a re-start. Apparently someone got
off the course and several others followed (including me). Riders were meeting each
other head-on, so for safety reasons they made the wise decision to start over. Some
of the riders were none too happy, particularly one guy who went ballistic with a tirade
of profanity directed at a couple of the club members. If it had been me listening to
that, I probably would have sent the guy home. But the club should have known that
homemade arrows (triangle-shaped paper with two orange dots spray painted on
them) would cause problems. And as I've seen before, it doesn't work well when a
club tries to run the minis and quads in a simultaneous race prior to the bike race (on
separate courses), and then combine the two courses for the motorcycles.
After what seemed like forever, they finally restarted us for a 1.5-hour race. Most of
the course was rideable except for a couple of nasty creek crossings and an uphill
out of a ravine. I didn't really get hung up on any of it, and there were plenty of people
helping with the creek crossings. The only problem I had was a close encounter with
a tree branch that hit me near my right eye. If my goggles had been on, I wouldn't
have even felt it. When the race ended and I had a chance to look at it, it didn't look
good. I went over to the ambulance to see if the EMT's had something to clean and
sterilize the cut, but I think they were there more for show than for anything else. I
asked them a few questions, like "Do I need stitches?" and "Are you old enough to
drive this ambulance?" and the best they could do was give me a tiny alcohol pad and
a huge, face-sized bandage. Let's see, I've got a bloody half-inch cut about one inch
from my eye, and I get a 4 inch square bandage and a sterile pad just large enough
to clean a small pimple. So I used some leftover water from the CamelBak and an
old Dairy Queen napkin from the glove box and cleaned it up real good. A few days
later I had a nice black eye, my first one ever.
June 4, 2000
White City, Illinois
2nd of 11 in Open B
Oh, so close. After two hours of racing I was less than a minute behind the leader in
my class. Less than one minute from victory. If I hadn't got caught taking a shortcut
through the woods, I might have won, but more on that later. Matt and I went together
and both signed up for the Open B class of the SOIL (S. Illinois) series. White City is
one of four clubs that hosts one or two races each year as part of a regional hare
scrambles series (Belleville's race was also part of this series). When we arrived
and walked part of the course, it looked to be in perfect condition, unlike the previous
year when it was hot and very muddy. I've ridden in both good and bad conditions
here, so I was very pleased to see that I would only be fighting my spodely riding
skills and nothing else.
Naturally, 20 minutes before the race the skies let loose for a brief, moderate rain
shower. Not much accumulation, but just enough to make the trail very slippery.
When our row started, my tire spun in the wet grass and Matt took off ahead of me.
The rain continued just long enough to render my goggles useless, so for the second
week in a row I rode most of the race with no eye protection. My shiner from the
previous week was still noticeable, and as the race progressed I was having visions
of unseen tree branches poking my eyes out. Fortunately that didn't happen, but on
each of the three laps I got hung up on some obstacle. On the first lap I didn't make it
up a steep hill and lost about 5 minutes getting restarted. On lap 2, a tricky
off-camber had deteriorated to impassible, so the wasted time and energy cost me
more time. The third lap might have been my fastest, since the trails were more
tacky, but some of the sections were getting torn up and guys were getting hung up
on some of the hills. At one of those hills, I took an alternate path to avoid a downed
rider, which took me right to a bunch of club guys who told me to turn around, but I
didn't think I had cut the course and just kept going. Apparently I was wrong and they
wrote down my number and docked me one minute on my overall time. After the race
was done and the scores posted, I questioned the scorekeeper about the minute
added to my time. I think several guys got caught doing the same thing I did and had
already complained, so by the time I talked to the guy his patience was running out.
He wasn't too friendly and told me that if I kept pushing the issue I might not get
second place, or any place at all, so I just walked away. The incident kind of took
away some of the good feelings I had from placing second, so I grabbed my trophy
and went home with Matt (he got 4th), who kept saying "Every time I go with you to an
Illinois race it rains the whole time...."
Park HIlls, Missouri
Kingman, Indiana
White City, Illinois
Kingman, Indiana
White City, Illinois
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