| 2003 Race Reports |
 |  |  |
August 10, 2003
Polo, Missouri
3rd of 13 in Vet
Matt Sellers and I have been making the long drive to Polo for the last 3 years, and
each time one of us has come back with a messed up body. I started the trend two
years ago with a shoulder injury from a nasty crash in a pasture gully wash. Last year
Matt took a season-ending high-speed fall in an open area and broke his collarbone
and a couple of ribs. This year it was me again, coming home with a badly sprained
ankle.
From my house to Adam Ashcroft's race site is almost exactly 250 miles, but the drive
is always worth it. The Polo race is one of the few bike-only venues on the MHSC
schedule, which makes the trails a blast to ride. The absence of fat-tired vehicles kept
the course narrow and a whole lot smoother, as some of the rocks actually stayed put
without undue influence from trail-widening stampedes known as ATV hare
scrambles. This year's course was extremely dry, with huge cracks showing in the
parched soil. The practice lap was predictably dusty, but for much of the day cloud
cover kept the sun from broiling us to medium rare.
At the start, I lined up next to #106 Wade Hall, back on his Yamaha after a wrist injury
at Westphalia. With his wrist was still healing, Wade planned to do just one lap to
ease back into racing form, but toughed it out for two. For a change, I actually got a
decent start and was in 3rd place at the first turn. Soon after, #383 Neal Soenksen
took an undeveloped inside line and passed me. I followed him closely through the
first few miles of the 9.3-mile course until we came upon a slower rider in a class that
started ahead of us. In the first dry creek section, I took a risky line through some tall
grass and passed both Neal and the slower rider on the left. Ahead of me was #226
Jerry McCasland on his Honda and #81 Matt Weis, in the lead and setting a fast pace.
I followed Jerry for much of the first lap and tried to find a good place to make a pass.
Near the end of the lap was a series of dry creek beds full of sharp-edged rocks, and I
decided to attempt a third-gear pass. A couple of slower riders were ahead of us, and
since the pass on Neal had worked so well while he was following a slower rider, I
decided to try the same thing on Jerry. But this time my front wheel hit an odd-shaped
rock and abruptly sent me in the wrong direction. I almost saved it, but in an instant I
was on the ground with a sore left ankle. I took some time to pick up the bike and saw
a group of riders including #442 Steve Crews go by. I figured Neal was in the group
somewhere and I was back in the middle of the pack. I didn't lose too much time
getting back on the bike and the ankle pain subsided within a minute or two. But the
crash had cost me some valuable momentum.
I finished the first lap in 6th place, just ahead of Neal. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't
be as aggressive with pain in my gear-shifter foot. Several times I found myself taking
the easy way up rocky hills to avoid having to stick out my left foot for balance. Every so
often I would brush my sore foot against a rock or tree, which normally I wouldn't have
even noticed, but each time it happened at Polo the pain was sharp and intense. On a
tricky, rock-infested uphill my left foot made contact with a boulder and I let out a string
of expletives...in front of the Hammerdown Video crew.
Over the next two laps I slowly worked my way up the pack. By the end of the 3rd lap,
#76 Gary Mittleberg and #237 Elston Moore were way out in front of the Vet class.
Near the middle of that 3rd lap I heard the unmistakable sound of a small-bore
engine screaming behind me and closing fast. #128 Zach Bryant, well on his way to
the A class, passed by and I tried to follow. His throttle must have been locked at
halfway, because I never heard the RPM's slow down to anywhere close to idle. It
takes tons of aggressiveness and incredibly smooth clutch work to keep the rear
wheel tracking effectively under such power, and the 200B class fast guy made it look
easy. On the lazy man's bike of choice, my 300EXC grunted while Zach's screamed.
Descending the steep downhill that was last year's toughest ledge-filled climb, Zach
took a spill and I tried my best not to run over his bike while he attempted to drag it off
the trail. In no time, he was screaming around me again.
The highlight of my fourth and final lap came near the end, just after the same creek
section that had created my pain and suffering. With Open B winner Mark Kendall
closing the 2-minute gap between our classes, I caught a glimpse of a brown snake
lying across the trail. Like Indiana Jones, I hate snakes. I lifted up both feet like a kid
riding his bike through a mud puddle and ran over the snake. Mark did the same,
probably without the wuss-style leg lift.
After it was over, I could hardly walk. At some point during the race I had smacked my
right foot against something (possibly the foot peg) and it hurt almost as bad as my
sprained left ankle. I was pretty much worthless for anything except driving, so once
again Matt did most of the heavy lifting as we prepared for the long ride home. Matt
had another good race and finished 3rd in Open B. All things considered, I was happy
with my 3rd place finish in the Vet class. Now, let the healing begin....
August 24, 2003
Sedalia, Missouri
8th of 9 in Vet
Ever feel like you're pushing your luck? Two weeks after a severe ankle sprain at
Polo, that's how I felt at Round 12 of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship.
The day after Polo, it took just about all the pain tolerance I could muster to walk from
my downtown parking garage to the office. But with each passing day I saw small
improvements. I measured my progress on how well I could keep up with a rather,
shall we say, 350 pound lady who each day makes a heavily labored trip to and from
the same parking garage. On Monday, the day after the injury, she smoked me. On
Friday, two days before the Sedalia race, I finally outpaced her. That was progress
enough to prepare the KTM for racing. The final test came Saturday afternoon, when I
shoved my fat foot into the AXO's and strapped up the boot. I passed.
I was going to Sedalia.
Matt drove his big rig to the race site southeast of town on another warm, dry morning.
For the first time this year, we brought his pop-up awning and my amazingly
comfortable folding chairs (footrests make all the difference, believe me). Both were
much appreciated in the hot sun. The area had received some rain during the week,
which kept down dust levels in the woods. Still, with many weeks since the last
significant amount of precipitation, the course looked dry.
I had some concern with how the ankle would respond to gear shifting, but after a
fistful of Advil and a couple initial shifts on the practice lap it felt fine. As usual, I
treated practice as a full-on sprint, unable to make myself slow down and take a
close look at the course. As expected, the trails were dry but the dust was
manageable. By the end of the lap, with #221 Mike Hamilton screaming behind me, I
was beat. Two weeks of R&R had ruined my stamina. What was especially
disappointing is that those two weeks were the best this summer for after-work heat
training on the bicycle. Until mid-August, we'd only had a few days of upper-90's
temperatures in the St. Louis area. There's nothing more effective than torturing
yourself in the heat to prepare for hot Sundays, but I'd missed out on the heat wave
between Polo and Sedalia, instead lounging around the house with my left "kankle,"
watching Queer Eye reruns and the Nick Lachey/Jessica Simpson reality show on
MTV.
To explain how tired I was after the practice lap, picture me napping in my comfy chair
beneath Matt's awning. I could have slept well into the afternoon, but I woke up in time
to ride to the starting line. I took an inside position next to the woods, which also
happened to be the most shaded spot on the line. The start was a sprint through an
open field that paralleled part of the course that was just inside the woods on the
right. After 100 yards or so we cut into the woods and joined up with the course. I
entered the woods in my typical mid-pack position, trying to keep up with #442 Steve
Crews. He jumped out in front and left me searching for clean air on the ATV section
of the course. Eventually we exited the wide trails and began several miles of new
singletrack. Steve and #237 Elston Moore both fell just as the trails narrowed, and
#76 Gary Mittelberg and I passed them. I tried to keep up with Gary, but he gradually
pulled away with his smooth style on the Yamaha 4-stroke. Elston caught up quickly
and passed me after I bobbled coming out of a gully. Elston is fun to follow because
his lines are almost always what I'd choose. Passing opportunities were scarce, and
although I had a chance in a heavily whooped creek section, I held back and
continued following Elston. I didn't want risk further injury so early in the race. Little did
I know that more pain was in my immediate future.
My ankle held out surprisingly well, other than the times I planted my left foot for
balance around sharp turns. I continued to follow Elston through the singletrack and
into the final section of ATV trails. About a mile before the scoring trailer, my right hand
guard clipped a tree and I lost my grip on the bars. The KTM veered to the left, but I
couldn't get my right hand back on the bars in time to correct the bike. It seemed very
clear to me that I was heading straight into a tree, so I did something I have never
done before in all of my years of riding and racing dirt bikes.
I bailed.
Normally, I'll ride out a sure crash until something -- a tree, a rock, the ground -- stops
me and the bike. I once stuck with my KTM as it nose-dived down a 3-foot creek bank
and broke a couple of ribs when the bike flipped on top of me. That's how committed
(or stupid) I am to going down with my bike. But on this day, I decided to sacrifice the
bike instead of my body and I jumped off. There was one minor problem: I bailed
directly into a tree at about 20 mph. It was a full frontal body slam, the kind where
breathing is difficult afterwards and the world becomes eerily quiet. My ribs hurt. My
legs hurt. Heck, even the twins were suffering. I gave Steve Crews the thumbs up as
he passed by, then searched for my bike. It had chosen a clear path through the
woods and lay on its side about 50 feet from me. I sat for awhile, watched Matt ride by,
and then tested my most important body parts. Everything seemed functional, so I got
back on the bike and finished the first lap.
I considered quitting right away, but after a few minutes on the bike I felt O.K. and
wanted to ride some more. So I did another lap and it was fun. But I just didn't have it
in me to do 2+ hours, so I called it a day after the 2nd lap, a little over an hour into the
race. I rested my sore body in my comfy chair while Matt completed 5 laps. Gary
Mittelberg continued his winning ways in the Vet class and took the win, while the
nearly unbeatable Steve Leivan captured yet another overall victory.
Polo, Missouri
3rd of 13 in Vet
Matt Sellers and I have been making the long drive to Polo for the last 3 years, and
each time one of us has come back with a messed up body. I started the trend two
years ago with a shoulder injury from a nasty crash in a pasture gully wash. Last year
Matt took a season-ending high-speed fall in an open area and broke his collarbone
and a couple of ribs. This year it was me again, coming home with a badly sprained
ankle.
From my house to Adam Ashcroft's race site is almost exactly 250 miles, but the drive
is always worth it. The Polo race is one of the few bike-only venues on the MHSC
schedule, which makes the trails a blast to ride. The absence of fat-tired vehicles kept
the course narrow and a whole lot smoother, as some of the rocks actually stayed put
without undue influence from trail-widening stampedes known as ATV hare
scrambles. This year's course was extremely dry, with huge cracks showing in the
parched soil. The practice lap was predictably dusty, but for much of the day cloud
cover kept the sun from broiling us to medium rare.
At the start, I lined up next to #106 Wade Hall, back on his Yamaha after a wrist injury
at Westphalia. With his wrist was still healing, Wade planned to do just one lap to
ease back into racing form, but toughed it out for two. For a change, I actually got a
decent start and was in 3rd place at the first turn. Soon after, #383 Neal Soenksen
took an undeveloped inside line and passed me. I followed him closely through the
first few miles of the 9.3-mile course until we came upon a slower rider in a class that
started ahead of us. In the first dry creek section, I took a risky line through some tall
grass and passed both Neal and the slower rider on the left. Ahead of me was #226
Jerry McCasland on his Honda and #81 Matt Weis, in the lead and setting a fast pace.
I followed Jerry for much of the first lap and tried to find a good place to make a pass.
Near the end of the lap was a series of dry creek beds full of sharp-edged rocks, and I
decided to attempt a third-gear pass. A couple of slower riders were ahead of us, and
since the pass on Neal had worked so well while he was following a slower rider, I
decided to try the same thing on Jerry. But this time my front wheel hit an odd-shaped
rock and abruptly sent me in the wrong direction. I almost saved it, but in an instant I
was on the ground with a sore left ankle. I took some time to pick up the bike and saw
a group of riders including #442 Steve Crews go by. I figured Neal was in the group
somewhere and I was back in the middle of the pack. I didn't lose too much time
getting back on the bike and the ankle pain subsided within a minute or two. But the
crash had cost me some valuable momentum.
I finished the first lap in 6th place, just ahead of Neal. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't
be as aggressive with pain in my gear-shifter foot. Several times I found myself taking
the easy way up rocky hills to avoid having to stick out my left foot for balance. Every so
often I would brush my sore foot against a rock or tree, which normally I wouldn't have
even noticed, but each time it happened at Polo the pain was sharp and intense. On a
tricky, rock-infested uphill my left foot made contact with a boulder and I let out a string
of expletives...in front of the Hammerdown Video crew.
Over the next two laps I slowly worked my way up the pack. By the end of the 3rd lap,
#76 Gary Mittleberg and #237 Elston Moore were way out in front of the Vet class.
Near the middle of that 3rd lap I heard the unmistakable sound of a small-bore
engine screaming behind me and closing fast. #128 Zach Bryant, well on his way to
the A class, passed by and I tried to follow. His throttle must have been locked at
halfway, because I never heard the RPM's slow down to anywhere close to idle. It
takes tons of aggressiveness and incredibly smooth clutch work to keep the rear
wheel tracking effectively under such power, and the 200B class fast guy made it look
easy. On the lazy man's bike of choice, my 300EXC grunted while Zach's screamed.
Descending the steep downhill that was last year's toughest ledge-filled climb, Zach
took a spill and I tried my best not to run over his bike while he attempted to drag it off
the trail. In no time, he was screaming around me again.
The highlight of my fourth and final lap came near the end, just after the same creek
section that had created my pain and suffering. With Open B winner Mark Kendall
closing the 2-minute gap between our classes, I caught a glimpse of a brown snake
lying across the trail. Like Indiana Jones, I hate snakes. I lifted up both feet like a kid
riding his bike through a mud puddle and ran over the snake. Mark did the same,
probably without the wuss-style leg lift.
After it was over, I could hardly walk. At some point during the race I had smacked my
right foot against something (possibly the foot peg) and it hurt almost as bad as my
sprained left ankle. I was pretty much worthless for anything except driving, so once
again Matt did most of the heavy lifting as we prepared for the long ride home. Matt
had another good race and finished 3rd in Open B. All things considered, I was happy
with my 3rd place finish in the Vet class. Now, let the healing begin....
August 24, 2003
Sedalia, Missouri
8th of 9 in Vet
Ever feel like you're pushing your luck? Two weeks after a severe ankle sprain at
Polo, that's how I felt at Round 12 of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship.
The day after Polo, it took just about all the pain tolerance I could muster to walk from
my downtown parking garage to the office. But with each passing day I saw small
improvements. I measured my progress on how well I could keep up with a rather,
shall we say, 350 pound lady who each day makes a heavily labored trip to and from
the same parking garage. On Monday, the day after the injury, she smoked me. On
Friday, two days before the Sedalia race, I finally outpaced her. That was progress
enough to prepare the KTM for racing. The final test came Saturday afternoon, when I
shoved my fat foot into the AXO's and strapped up the boot. I passed.
I was going to Sedalia.
Matt drove his big rig to the race site southeast of town on another warm, dry morning.
For the first time this year, we brought his pop-up awning and my amazingly
comfortable folding chairs (footrests make all the difference, believe me). Both were
much appreciated in the hot sun. The area had received some rain during the week,
which kept down dust levels in the woods. Still, with many weeks since the last
significant amount of precipitation, the course looked dry.
I had some concern with how the ankle would respond to gear shifting, but after a
fistful of Advil and a couple initial shifts on the practice lap it felt fine. As usual, I
treated practice as a full-on sprint, unable to make myself slow down and take a
close look at the course. As expected, the trails were dry but the dust was
manageable. By the end of the lap, with #221 Mike Hamilton screaming behind me, I
was beat. Two weeks of R&R had ruined my stamina. What was especially
disappointing is that those two weeks were the best this summer for after-work heat
training on the bicycle. Until mid-August, we'd only had a few days of upper-90's
temperatures in the St. Louis area. There's nothing more effective than torturing
yourself in the heat to prepare for hot Sundays, but I'd missed out on the heat wave
between Polo and Sedalia, instead lounging around the house with my left "kankle,"
watching Queer Eye reruns and the Nick Lachey/Jessica Simpson reality show on
MTV.
To explain how tired I was after the practice lap, picture me napping in my comfy chair
beneath Matt's awning. I could have slept well into the afternoon, but I woke up in time
to ride to the starting line. I took an inside position next to the woods, which also
happened to be the most shaded spot on the line. The start was a sprint through an
open field that paralleled part of the course that was just inside the woods on the
right. After 100 yards or so we cut into the woods and joined up with the course. I
entered the woods in my typical mid-pack position, trying to keep up with #442 Steve
Crews. He jumped out in front and left me searching for clean air on the ATV section
of the course. Eventually we exited the wide trails and began several miles of new
singletrack. Steve and #237 Elston Moore both fell just as the trails narrowed, and
#76 Gary Mittelberg and I passed them. I tried to keep up with Gary, but he gradually
pulled away with his smooth style on the Yamaha 4-stroke. Elston caught up quickly
and passed me after I bobbled coming out of a gully. Elston is fun to follow because
his lines are almost always what I'd choose. Passing opportunities were scarce, and
although I had a chance in a heavily whooped creek section, I held back and
continued following Elston. I didn't want risk further injury so early in the race. Little did
I know that more pain was in my immediate future.
My ankle held out surprisingly well, other than the times I planted my left foot for
balance around sharp turns. I continued to follow Elston through the singletrack and
into the final section of ATV trails. About a mile before the scoring trailer, my right hand
guard clipped a tree and I lost my grip on the bars. The KTM veered to the left, but I
couldn't get my right hand back on the bars in time to correct the bike. It seemed very
clear to me that I was heading straight into a tree, so I did something I have never
done before in all of my years of riding and racing dirt bikes.
I bailed.
Normally, I'll ride out a sure crash until something -- a tree, a rock, the ground -- stops
me and the bike. I once stuck with my KTM as it nose-dived down a 3-foot creek bank
and broke a couple of ribs when the bike flipped on top of me. That's how committed
(or stupid) I am to going down with my bike. But on this day, I decided to sacrifice the
bike instead of my body and I jumped off. There was one minor problem: I bailed
directly into a tree at about 20 mph. It was a full frontal body slam, the kind where
breathing is difficult afterwards and the world becomes eerily quiet. My ribs hurt. My
legs hurt. Heck, even the twins were suffering. I gave Steve Crews the thumbs up as
he passed by, then searched for my bike. It had chosen a clear path through the
woods and lay on its side about 50 feet from me. I sat for awhile, watched Matt ride by,
and then tested my most important body parts. Everything seemed functional, so I got
back on the bike and finished the first lap.
I considered quitting right away, but after a few minutes on the bike I felt O.K. and
wanted to ride some more. So I did another lap and it was fun. But I just didn't have it
in me to do 2+ hours, so I called it a day after the 2nd lap, a little over an hour into the
race. I rested my sore body in my comfy chair while Matt completed 5 laps. Gary
Mittelberg continued his winning ways in the Vet class and took the win, while the
nearly unbeatable Steve Leivan captured yet another overall victory.
Polo, Missouri
Sedalia, Missouri
Sedalia, Missouri
| Yeah, it hurts. |