| 2004 Race Reports |
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March 21, 2004
Combs, Arkansas
Earlier this month, regular riding biddy Matt Sellers drove to somewhere in the vicinity
of Nowhere, Georgia to buy SETRA fast guy Mike Grizzle’s 6-month-old KTM 450EXC.
Apparently Matt’s itch for long drives didn’t wear off in time for the White Rock Enduro,
as 10 days in advance of the event he lobbied for a road trip to his first ever enduro. I’
m always game for road trips, especially when they involve college towns, cheap
motels and someone else doing the driving, so I threw our entry forms in the mail and
made plans for a weekend in Razorback country.
We hooked up with Edwardsville, Illinois’ resident enduro specialist Kevin Betts,
active this year in the BlackJack Enduro Circuit. No stranger to long road trips, Kevin
competed two weeks prior in the muddy Zink Ranch Enduro near Sand Springs,
Oklahoma. He offered to drive, so we met at my house on Saturday, loaded our bikes
and gear into Kevin’s enclosed trailer and began the 6-hour voyage to Fayetteville,
home of the University of Arkansas. My stellar navigation skills guided us to
Springdale, just north of Fayetteville and home of Tyson Foods, where we took a
small detour and stumbled upon Tyson’s world headquarters. With my agribusiness
curiosity satisfied, we focused our efforts on settling in at the Super 8 and tried to get
a good night’s rest.
Since I had sent in our entry forms so late, I figured we had two options: a late row or
an early row. There’s good and bad with each option, but I asked for an earlier row
because over the years I’ve had worse experiences with late rows. At Roselawn,
Indiana in 1996, in what I believe was the last of the infamous Swamp years, I was
blessed with an early row and got to navigate the muck before 200 other guys
messed it up (I still managed to bury the bike in a 3-foot bike-swallowing rut). On the
other hand, at Marietta, Illinois in 1999 I was cursed with a late row and got what was
left over after 100 guys had already destroyed the waterlogged trails. Usually these
advance requests for particular rows are generally honored as much as the club can,
but you only find out your row number for sure when you get there. As it turned out, my
wish was granted, sort of: Row 1. Yep, that’s definitely an early row. I was “1A”; Matt
was “1B”. Also on our row was fast guy Jerry Hemann, an occasional Missouri hare
scrambles participant. Kevin Betts was on row 30, a half-hour behind us. After Matt
and I left the trailer, that was the last we would see of Kevin until the end of the race.
The Razorback Riders, organizers of the event, had set up the staging area in a
picturesque valley in the Ozark Mountains. A creek flowed through the property, and
just across a wooden bridge was the starting line. As the minutes counted down to
our departure, 8:00 came and went and I wondered why we hadn’t left yet (Clock Error
Clue #1). At 8:01 on my clock, the “01” card on the signboard was turned over,
signaling the start of our race. The experienced enduro riders reading this will
recognize my mistake immediately, but for everyone else, we’ll get to that later. Jerry
showed up at the last minute and the three of us were set loose to begin an easy, 18-
mph section.
This first section was mostly ATV trails that were still slightly damp. It was a good
warm-up and much needed, as I was getting used to the KTM again after riding it only
about two hours over the prior 6 months. And being the first group of riders to see the
trails, we were doing our best to clear off the rocks and splash water out of the ruts for
the rest of the field (I was quite good at it). White Rock is an appropriate name for this
area, with many rocks and not surprisingly, some of them are white. After about 8
miles, we finally hit some singletrack winding through cedar trees and I was confident
there would be a check upcoming. Even though Jerry had an ICO Checkmate
computer, the Cadillac of enduro timekeeping devices, its clock was off about 45
seconds from mine (Clock Error Clue #2). With Matt being an enduro virgin and Jerry
thinking his computer’s clock was off, I was elected Chief Timekeeper by the group.
When it comes to timekeeping, I do it Old School style, with a clock, odometer and roll
chart the tools of my trade. I had been keeping us right at the top of our minute,
figuring there’d have to be something a little more difficult than ATV trails before the
first check. For me, second-gear trails are usually difficult to maintain 18 miles per
hour, so I figured we would hit the singletrack in the top of our minute and maybe by
the first check we’d lose some time but still be within our minute and not drop any
points.
I figured wrong.
Jerry and I took off into the singletrack, which didn’t last long before we came upon
the first check. We inexplicably showed up 10 seconds early, while Matt arrived just
long enough after us to not drop any points (Clock Error Clue #3). The Enduro Virgin
got lucky. After a reset, we spent some more time riding easy trails until late in the
loop, where we dropped down into the same trail where we had began the enduro
nearly an hour before. We had been warned that this short section of trail would have
two-way traffic, and sure enough, guys were coming up the hill as we were
descending. We narrowly avoided the oncoming traffic before arrows diverted us into
an extremely tight section of saplings near the creek at the Razorback property. I could
sense we were on pace to drop a point or two by the time the loop ended. We
crossed through the creek near the wood bridge, where the loop ended back at the
staging area and the second check awaited us. Despite our slow progress in the tight
trails at the end of the loop, I zeroed the check (Clock Error Clue #4).
After a gas stop and a snack, we began the longest loop of the day, about 35 miles.
We continued at an 18 mph average for the first couple miles of the section, then
increased to 24 mph for the next 9 miles of mostly singletrack. At the start of the 24
mph section I let Jerry lead and kept him in sight long enough to see him crash. I
believe that was where he destroyed radiator shroud #2 (only half of the first shroud
remained from an earlier incident). I went on ahead and Jerry caught up a short while
later. We stayed together for a few more miles, where the trail dumped us out into a
logging road. We were hauling down the road and got back on time quickly. Jerry
motioned to me in what I thought was a question of how we were doing on time, and I
motioned back to keep on rolling since we were back in the top of our minute. He
finally came to a stop and suggested that since we hadn’t seen arrows in over a mile,
we just might be off course. Oh, yeah…arrows. We backtracked and located arrows,
losing several minutes in the process. The singletrack prior to the road crossing had
swept to the right and we had followed the “sweep” into the road, when we should
have gone straight across the road and continued on more singletrack. By this time
we were confident Matt was well ahead of us and were dismayed not to see him at a
lengthy reset a few miles later. He had surely continued on, thinking that as long as
he didn’t get ahead of us, he was fine.
After conveying our thoughts about arrow placement to the nearest human being who
didn’t ignore us (hey, you gotta vent at someone), Jerry and I rested until it was time to
continue on. A check awaited us shortly after and I accidentally checked us in early.
We found Matt stopped on the trail and explained what happened. He burned the
check by nearly 15 minutes. We rode at 18 mph for the next 20 miles after the long
reset, with several miles on top of a ridge that was cleared of trees. Just before the
long ridge section, we had splashed through a lot of standing water on a logging road
and my fingers were cold. But the view from atop the ridge was spectacular. The
elevation changes, from the valleys below to the tops of the ridges, appeared to be
500 feet or more, which for this flatlander was the highest hills I had ever ridden. The
climbs seemed to go on forever and the descents were fun but sometimes
treacherous, especially where water breaks had been built for erosion control. Going
up hills, I could launch the bike blindly over the water breaks and risk landing on who
knows what. On the way down, it was just a matter of how fast I wanted to go, how far I
wanted to launch the bike over the water breaks, and of course the size of my pelotas.
The 18 mph average finally changed to 24 mph for the last 5.4 miles before the end of
the short course. These last miles were a repeat of what we had already ridden to
finish out the first loop. Jerry and I rode hard, with Matt close behind. The trails
reminded me of St. Joe State Park, fast, open, and full of rocks. After riding this
section as fast and aggressively as I am humanly capable, back at the staging area
Jerry mentioned that we were riding those trails at a speed just under what it takes to
get seriously injured. Coming from a AA rider, I took that as a compliment. We both
dropped one point at the check that awaited us on the other side of the creek. Fifty
miles down, 25 to go.
Back at the staging area, we gassed up for a second time and headed back out for
the third and final loop of the day, a 25-mile section that was entirely 24 mph. We
started on some dirt roads and Jerry jumped out ahead. He was getting a little further
ahead of time that I wanted to be, so I let him go and he was soon out of my sight.
The trails were relatively open and fast once we got into the woods, and from there on
out it was a sprint. And sprint I did, reaching the next check right on time. Jerry
sprinted a little too hard and burned the check. The three of us stayed together for a
little while after that, but then Jerry found his groove and left me, while Matt hung
around behind me. After a couple more miles I couldn’t hear the sound of Matt’s 4-
stroke anymore. It was just me and the trail. The hills became steeper and rockier
and were full of water breaks. About 10 miles into the loop, I came around a corner
and saw a big hill with a big rock ledge in the middle and a big bunch of spectators
lining both sides of the trail. At enduros you rarely see such crowds unless they are
there to watch something interesting, and in this case the rock ledge was there for the
spectators’ viewing pleasure. And I was there to entertain. I went to the far left side of
the trail to attempt to scale the ledge, and probably would have made it had I not
landed directly on top of a boulder and come to a complete stop. I had nowhere to
plant my feet, so I jumped off and let the bike fall over. As the right handguard
smacked solid rock, the sound of the impact drew reaction from the crowd. I pulled
the bike off the rock ledge and saw Matt at the bottom of the hill. He paused to let me
get my bike upright and then I heard his engine surge and die. I thought he killed the
engine, but as photos would later prove, he dumped his bike (out of sympathy, I’m
sure). I took off for another attempt at scaling the ledge, this time on the right side.
The second try was successful and the spectators roared with approval as I blasted
through boulder after boulder on the way to the top of a very long hill.
By now I was tired and ready for the race to end, but the Razorback crew had saved
the worst for last. The next couple of miles were mostly singletrack strewn with
boulders, big, small, and otherwise. The KTM proved itself in this section, allowing
me to ride like a wimp and still keep chugging along. My race mercifully ended at
about the 70-ground-mile mark, where Jerry Hemann was waiting for me. We headed
back to the staging area on the same trail we had already ridden twice, thinking we
were surely lost. We kept on following the arrows for nearly 5 miles until we finally
came out at the creek crossing at the Razorback grounds.
Matt showed up several minutes later holding his left hand. Somewhere after
Spectator Hill, he fell and broke the end of his thumb. Due to our mistakes, we were
both out of contention for decent finishes and even though Matt got hurt, we still had a
great time riding somewhere we’d never been before. It was only when the scores
were posted on the internet that I realized my critical timekeeping mistake: My clock
was set a minute early. Of the 9 checks that counted (one was thrown out), I was early
to four. And at two of those four checks I was two minutes early. Ouch. I had failed in
my duty as Chief Timekeeper. Had I set my clock correctly, I may have still legitimately
burned two checks, but dropping so many points put me pretty far down the bottom of
my class. But I didn't really care. I was there to have fun and I wasn't disappointed.
Thanks to the Razorback Riders for putting on an excellent event.
March 28, 2004
Belleville, Illinois
1st of 4 in Vet
Who in their right mind would race at Belleville, following a week of intermittent rains
and a forecast for more on Sunday?
To understand that question, you have to know a thing or two about the Belleville
Enduro Team club grounds. Depending on the weather, you can have a lot of fun or
wish you had stayed home. It’s good or bad, pleasure or pain, filet or head cheese,
Jessica Simpson or Courtney Love, and it all depends on the weather. And on
Sunday morning it didn’t look good. But that didn’t stop me from putting the KX to its
first test in real mud, and Belleville is the real deal.
I parked next to Joe Rosier and his son Keifer, a regular in the MHSC Junior class.
Like me, Keifer was using this race as a warm-up for the MHSC opener at Lebanon
the following Sunday. Predictably, the moderately educated guess that serves as the
Intellicast weather forecast was wrong, but in our favor. The morning rains were
delayed like an afternoon flight on Delta, when you’re scheduled to get home in time
for dinner but they screw you with a bogus mechanical problem that mysteriously
pops up when your flight is less than 1/3 full and they cancel it so they can put
everyone on the next flight that doesn’t leave for three more friggin’ hours. But I
digress. I spent just over an hour walking the course under partly sunny skies and
covered it all. My moderately educated guess of a 3-mile length was confirmed at the
riders meeting, and based on the fact that we were sharing the ATV course, 10-12
laps in 2 hours seemed reasonable. Other than a big water hole near the far corner of
the property, everything looked entirely rideable. Nothing too tight, only slightly
technical, and short. The club officials lined us up at 10:30 a.m., earlier than most
races, but that would be a blessing.
I signed up for the Vet class, which included Cape Girardeau, Missouri native Jason
Hawk on his big KTM thumper. Two rows ahead of us was MHSC regular Dwayne
Parish sporting his brightly colored helmet. The starting line was on the TT track, its
gently banked turns lined with plywood walls that screamed “Leg Splinters!” to
anyone feeling more aggressive than the damp clay would allow. I watched the first
couple rows navigate the sweeping first turn, fly over the smooth jump on the
opposite side of the oval, then exit the track and begin a muddy climb up the steepest
hill on the course. My row included one other class, with a total of about 8 guys on the
line. On my right was Jason and to my left was a guy on a KX250 like mine. When the
flag dropped, the two of us on the KX’s got quick starts and charged into the
sweeping left turn close together. He took the holeshot but I kept him very close. After
leaving the TT track and climbing the steep hill, we made a left turn and a quick right
as we passed through a fence gate. The ground was slick around the gate and the
other KX guy slid out, handing me the lead. I ran with it, flying down the backside of
the hill with the rear wheel kicking up. In 4th gear through a grassy area, I braked hard
to turn into the woods. The left turn had a nice berm leading into the trees, which was
very necessary for changing direction in the greasy clay and would be the only type of
corner that could be negotiated at any speed.
The first tricky section came quickly, an off-camber straightaway inside the woods that
the ATV’s would later struggle with. By now I was catching up to guys in the row ahead
of me and was able to get around a couple where the trail opened up. The club had
built some water breaks on the wide trail, not nearly as steep as what I had seen the
previous weekend at White Rock but a bit sketchier because of rocks that awaited in
the landing zone. I flew over the first break in 4th gear, the second one in 3rd, and
braked hard to make the next turn. The KX front brake was flat-out awesome, very
confidence-inspiring, and the bike handled superbly through the high-speed choppy
trails.
Near the back corner of the club property, I looked for an arrow split-off that I had seen
during my walk around the course. The club’s intention here was unclear, as the
arrows pointing left were barely visible unless you knew they were there. The main
route was longer, but the shorter route was more technical and had a nasty mud hole.
I saw bikes up ahead of me, so I took the shorter route through the mud hole and
beat several of them to a tricky downhill off-camber. But as I would discover on the
next lap, there was a check set up at the spot where the two trails converged. I had
scouted an inside line where the trail dropped off, but that line bypassed the
checkpoint. I didn’t even realize it was there on the first lap and blew right by it. From
then on, I took the longer route.
The trail zigzagged through the north end of the property until we reached the second
checkpoint at the far northwest corner of the club grounds. After a 5th gear run along
the perimeter of the property, we turned back into the woods. Just before the big water
hole was a tight, slick lefthander that I thought I could negotiate at speed by throwing
the KX into the berm and scrub some speed. Slow down I did, as the bike slid out
from under me and blocked the trail, with the front end pointed in the wrong direction.
The end of the left handguard was firmly planted a few inches into the clay, and it took
two tries to jerk it loose. I got it turned around after two riders passed by and I charged
through the center of the mud hole. The only good thing about Belleville clay is that it’s
firm, which kept me from sinking in the water. Throughout the rest of the race I was
able to take the same line through the center of the hole.
In the last mile of the course, the slime was a little nastier and it took some effort to
keep the bike going straight. None of the mud was particularly deep, just slick. But I
had put on the fattest Michelin S-12 rear tire I could find and hooked up great. The next
few laps were more of the same, but during the first hour of the race my clutch hand
felt tired. The KX is a little more work when things get technical, as it likes to be
revved. Thoughts of an aftermarket hydraulic clutch passed through my head while I
endured the pain in my left hand. But halfway through the race the pain disappeared
and I never noticed my clutch hand again. Around that same time, Dwayne Parish,
who had started a couple minutes ahead of me, soon was visible just before
checkpoint #1. I followed him for a couple minutes until the trail opened up and I was
able to make the pass by out-braking him to the next corner.
The only spot in the course that had to be re-routed was a small hill where a deep rut
was developing at the base. Some of the less experienced riders were getting hung
up there, but the course officials reacted quickly to keep guys like me from using them
as traction and marked a different way up the hill. Another interesting spot was just
before the point where I had crashed on the first lap, which was near the end of the
high-speed section after checkpoint #2. It was a sweeping left turn with a nice little rut
to lean into, but somewhere around the seventh lap I was coming up on a guy pretty
fast and wanted to beat him to the mud hole. He took the established line while I went
wide around the turn in 4th gear, outside the rut, and executed my best imitation of a
power slide. A speedway racer would have giggled in amusement, but my near slide-
out in 4th gear was enough to scare the other guy into letting me around.
A couple of the fast guys on the first row lapped me about 75 minutes into the race,
while I was following a Honda thumper on the TT track. The Honda guy had a pretty
good pace going, and I wasn’t able to pass him until the next lap. As the race wore
on, I rode well and felt good. That KX hit has become addictive, as has the strong front
brake. The rain held off until the checkered flag came out and I was able to load up
the bike and change clothes while it was still dry. The peewee race following the
initial rain shower left me with a lasting impression of Belleville. A little guy on a PW50
was coming off the TT track, his front tire packing so much clay that his forks were
acting as mud wipers. That, my friend, is the Belleville I know and love (sort of).
Combs, Arkansas
Earlier this month, regular riding biddy Matt Sellers drove to somewhere in the vicinity
of Nowhere, Georgia to buy SETRA fast guy Mike Grizzle’s 6-month-old KTM 450EXC.
Apparently Matt’s itch for long drives didn’t wear off in time for the White Rock Enduro,
as 10 days in advance of the event he lobbied for a road trip to his first ever enduro. I’
m always game for road trips, especially when they involve college towns, cheap
motels and someone else doing the driving, so I threw our entry forms in the mail and
made plans for a weekend in Razorback country.
We hooked up with Edwardsville, Illinois’ resident enduro specialist Kevin Betts,
active this year in the BlackJack Enduro Circuit. No stranger to long road trips, Kevin
competed two weeks prior in the muddy Zink Ranch Enduro near Sand Springs,
Oklahoma. He offered to drive, so we met at my house on Saturday, loaded our bikes
and gear into Kevin’s enclosed trailer and began the 6-hour voyage to Fayetteville,
home of the University of Arkansas. My stellar navigation skills guided us to
Springdale, just north of Fayetteville and home of Tyson Foods, where we took a
small detour and stumbled upon Tyson’s world headquarters. With my agribusiness
curiosity satisfied, we focused our efforts on settling in at the Super 8 and tried to get
a good night’s rest.
Since I had sent in our entry forms so late, I figured we had two options: a late row or
an early row. There’s good and bad with each option, but I asked for an earlier row
because over the years I’ve had worse experiences with late rows. At Roselawn,
Indiana in 1996, in what I believe was the last of the infamous Swamp years, I was
blessed with an early row and got to navigate the muck before 200 other guys
messed it up (I still managed to bury the bike in a 3-foot bike-swallowing rut). On the
other hand, at Marietta, Illinois in 1999 I was cursed with a late row and got what was
left over after 100 guys had already destroyed the waterlogged trails. Usually these
advance requests for particular rows are generally honored as much as the club can,
but you only find out your row number for sure when you get there. As it turned out, my
wish was granted, sort of: Row 1. Yep, that’s definitely an early row. I was “1A”; Matt
was “1B”. Also on our row was fast guy Jerry Hemann, an occasional Missouri hare
scrambles participant. Kevin Betts was on row 30, a half-hour behind us. After Matt
and I left the trailer, that was the last we would see of Kevin until the end of the race.
The Razorback Riders, organizers of the event, had set up the staging area in a
picturesque valley in the Ozark Mountains. A creek flowed through the property, and
just across a wooden bridge was the starting line. As the minutes counted down to
our departure, 8:00 came and went and I wondered why we hadn’t left yet (Clock Error
Clue #1). At 8:01 on my clock, the “01” card on the signboard was turned over,
signaling the start of our race. The experienced enduro riders reading this will
recognize my mistake immediately, but for everyone else, we’ll get to that later. Jerry
showed up at the last minute and the three of us were set loose to begin an easy, 18-
mph section.
This first section was mostly ATV trails that were still slightly damp. It was a good
warm-up and much needed, as I was getting used to the KTM again after riding it only
about two hours over the prior 6 months. And being the first group of riders to see the
trails, we were doing our best to clear off the rocks and splash water out of the ruts for
the rest of the field (I was quite good at it). White Rock is an appropriate name for this
area, with many rocks and not surprisingly, some of them are white. After about 8
miles, we finally hit some singletrack winding through cedar trees and I was confident
there would be a check upcoming. Even though Jerry had an ICO Checkmate
computer, the Cadillac of enduro timekeeping devices, its clock was off about 45
seconds from mine (Clock Error Clue #2). With Matt being an enduro virgin and Jerry
thinking his computer’s clock was off, I was elected Chief Timekeeper by the group.
When it comes to timekeeping, I do it Old School style, with a clock, odometer and roll
chart the tools of my trade. I had been keeping us right at the top of our minute,
figuring there’d have to be something a little more difficult than ATV trails before the
first check. For me, second-gear trails are usually difficult to maintain 18 miles per
hour, so I figured we would hit the singletrack in the top of our minute and maybe by
the first check we’d lose some time but still be within our minute and not drop any
points.
I figured wrong.
Jerry and I took off into the singletrack, which didn’t last long before we came upon
the first check. We inexplicably showed up 10 seconds early, while Matt arrived just
long enough after us to not drop any points (Clock Error Clue #3). The Enduro Virgin
got lucky. After a reset, we spent some more time riding easy trails until late in the
loop, where we dropped down into the same trail where we had began the enduro
nearly an hour before. We had been warned that this short section of trail would have
two-way traffic, and sure enough, guys were coming up the hill as we were
descending. We narrowly avoided the oncoming traffic before arrows diverted us into
an extremely tight section of saplings near the creek at the Razorback property. I could
sense we were on pace to drop a point or two by the time the loop ended. We
crossed through the creek near the wood bridge, where the loop ended back at the
staging area and the second check awaited us. Despite our slow progress in the tight
trails at the end of the loop, I zeroed the check (Clock Error Clue #4).
After a gas stop and a snack, we began the longest loop of the day, about 35 miles.
We continued at an 18 mph average for the first couple miles of the section, then
increased to 24 mph for the next 9 miles of mostly singletrack. At the start of the 24
mph section I let Jerry lead and kept him in sight long enough to see him crash. I
believe that was where he destroyed radiator shroud #2 (only half of the first shroud
remained from an earlier incident). I went on ahead and Jerry caught up a short while
later. We stayed together for a few more miles, where the trail dumped us out into a
logging road. We were hauling down the road and got back on time quickly. Jerry
motioned to me in what I thought was a question of how we were doing on time, and I
motioned back to keep on rolling since we were back in the top of our minute. He
finally came to a stop and suggested that since we hadn’t seen arrows in over a mile,
we just might be off course. Oh, yeah…arrows. We backtracked and located arrows,
losing several minutes in the process. The singletrack prior to the road crossing had
swept to the right and we had followed the “sweep” into the road, when we should
have gone straight across the road and continued on more singletrack. By this time
we were confident Matt was well ahead of us and were dismayed not to see him at a
lengthy reset a few miles later. He had surely continued on, thinking that as long as
he didn’t get ahead of us, he was fine.
After conveying our thoughts about arrow placement to the nearest human being who
didn’t ignore us (hey, you gotta vent at someone), Jerry and I rested until it was time to
continue on. A check awaited us shortly after and I accidentally checked us in early.
We found Matt stopped on the trail and explained what happened. He burned the
check by nearly 15 minutes. We rode at 18 mph for the next 20 miles after the long
reset, with several miles on top of a ridge that was cleared of trees. Just before the
long ridge section, we had splashed through a lot of standing water on a logging road
and my fingers were cold. But the view from atop the ridge was spectacular. The
elevation changes, from the valleys below to the tops of the ridges, appeared to be
500 feet or more, which for this flatlander was the highest hills I had ever ridden. The
climbs seemed to go on forever and the descents were fun but sometimes
treacherous, especially where water breaks had been built for erosion control. Going
up hills, I could launch the bike blindly over the water breaks and risk landing on who
knows what. On the way down, it was just a matter of how fast I wanted to go, how far I
wanted to launch the bike over the water breaks, and of course the size of my pelotas.
The 18 mph average finally changed to 24 mph for the last 5.4 miles before the end of
the short course. These last miles were a repeat of what we had already ridden to
finish out the first loop. Jerry and I rode hard, with Matt close behind. The trails
reminded me of St. Joe State Park, fast, open, and full of rocks. After riding this
section as fast and aggressively as I am humanly capable, back at the staging area
Jerry mentioned that we were riding those trails at a speed just under what it takes to
get seriously injured. Coming from a AA rider, I took that as a compliment. We both
dropped one point at the check that awaited us on the other side of the creek. Fifty
miles down, 25 to go.
Back at the staging area, we gassed up for a second time and headed back out for
the third and final loop of the day, a 25-mile section that was entirely 24 mph. We
started on some dirt roads and Jerry jumped out ahead. He was getting a little further
ahead of time that I wanted to be, so I let him go and he was soon out of my sight.
The trails were relatively open and fast once we got into the woods, and from there on
out it was a sprint. And sprint I did, reaching the next check right on time. Jerry
sprinted a little too hard and burned the check. The three of us stayed together for a
little while after that, but then Jerry found his groove and left me, while Matt hung
around behind me. After a couple more miles I couldn’t hear the sound of Matt’s 4-
stroke anymore. It was just me and the trail. The hills became steeper and rockier
and were full of water breaks. About 10 miles into the loop, I came around a corner
and saw a big hill with a big rock ledge in the middle and a big bunch of spectators
lining both sides of the trail. At enduros you rarely see such crowds unless they are
there to watch something interesting, and in this case the rock ledge was there for the
spectators’ viewing pleasure. And I was there to entertain. I went to the far left side of
the trail to attempt to scale the ledge, and probably would have made it had I not
landed directly on top of a boulder and come to a complete stop. I had nowhere to
plant my feet, so I jumped off and let the bike fall over. As the right handguard
smacked solid rock, the sound of the impact drew reaction from the crowd. I pulled
the bike off the rock ledge and saw Matt at the bottom of the hill. He paused to let me
get my bike upright and then I heard his engine surge and die. I thought he killed the
engine, but as photos would later prove, he dumped his bike (out of sympathy, I’m
sure). I took off for another attempt at scaling the ledge, this time on the right side.
The second try was successful and the spectators roared with approval as I blasted
through boulder after boulder on the way to the top of a very long hill.
By now I was tired and ready for the race to end, but the Razorback crew had saved
the worst for last. The next couple of miles were mostly singletrack strewn with
boulders, big, small, and otherwise. The KTM proved itself in this section, allowing
me to ride like a wimp and still keep chugging along. My race mercifully ended at
about the 70-ground-mile mark, where Jerry Hemann was waiting for me. We headed
back to the staging area on the same trail we had already ridden twice, thinking we
were surely lost. We kept on following the arrows for nearly 5 miles until we finally
came out at the creek crossing at the Razorback grounds.
Matt showed up several minutes later holding his left hand. Somewhere after
Spectator Hill, he fell and broke the end of his thumb. Due to our mistakes, we were
both out of contention for decent finishes and even though Matt got hurt, we still had a
great time riding somewhere we’d never been before. It was only when the scores
were posted on the internet that I realized my critical timekeeping mistake: My clock
was set a minute early. Of the 9 checks that counted (one was thrown out), I was early
to four. And at two of those four checks I was two minutes early. Ouch. I had failed in
my duty as Chief Timekeeper. Had I set my clock correctly, I may have still legitimately
burned two checks, but dropping so many points put me pretty far down the bottom of
my class. But I didn't really care. I was there to have fun and I wasn't disappointed.
Thanks to the Razorback Riders for putting on an excellent event.
March 28, 2004
Belleville, Illinois
1st of 4 in Vet
Who in their right mind would race at Belleville, following a week of intermittent rains
and a forecast for more on Sunday?
To understand that question, you have to know a thing or two about the Belleville
Enduro Team club grounds. Depending on the weather, you can have a lot of fun or
wish you had stayed home. It’s good or bad, pleasure or pain, filet or head cheese,
Jessica Simpson or Courtney Love, and it all depends on the weather. And on
Sunday morning it didn’t look good. But that didn’t stop me from putting the KX to its
first test in real mud, and Belleville is the real deal.
I parked next to Joe Rosier and his son Keifer, a regular in the MHSC Junior class.
Like me, Keifer was using this race as a warm-up for the MHSC opener at Lebanon
the following Sunday. Predictably, the moderately educated guess that serves as the
Intellicast weather forecast was wrong, but in our favor. The morning rains were
delayed like an afternoon flight on Delta, when you’re scheduled to get home in time
for dinner but they screw you with a bogus mechanical problem that mysteriously
pops up when your flight is less than 1/3 full and they cancel it so they can put
everyone on the next flight that doesn’t leave for three more friggin’ hours. But I
digress. I spent just over an hour walking the course under partly sunny skies and
covered it all. My moderately educated guess of a 3-mile length was confirmed at the
riders meeting, and based on the fact that we were sharing the ATV course, 10-12
laps in 2 hours seemed reasonable. Other than a big water hole near the far corner of
the property, everything looked entirely rideable. Nothing too tight, only slightly
technical, and short. The club officials lined us up at 10:30 a.m., earlier than most
races, but that would be a blessing.
I signed up for the Vet class, which included Cape Girardeau, Missouri native Jason
Hawk on his big KTM thumper. Two rows ahead of us was MHSC regular Dwayne
Parish sporting his brightly colored helmet. The starting line was on the TT track, its
gently banked turns lined with plywood walls that screamed “Leg Splinters!” to
anyone feeling more aggressive than the damp clay would allow. I watched the first
couple rows navigate the sweeping first turn, fly over the smooth jump on the
opposite side of the oval, then exit the track and begin a muddy climb up the steepest
hill on the course. My row included one other class, with a total of about 8 guys on the
line. On my right was Jason and to my left was a guy on a KX250 like mine. When the
flag dropped, the two of us on the KX’s got quick starts and charged into the
sweeping left turn close together. He took the holeshot but I kept him very close. After
leaving the TT track and climbing the steep hill, we made a left turn and a quick right
as we passed through a fence gate. The ground was slick around the gate and the
other KX guy slid out, handing me the lead. I ran with it, flying down the backside of
the hill with the rear wheel kicking up. In 4th gear through a grassy area, I braked hard
to turn into the woods. The left turn had a nice berm leading into the trees, which was
very necessary for changing direction in the greasy clay and would be the only type of
corner that could be negotiated at any speed.
The first tricky section came quickly, an off-camber straightaway inside the woods that
the ATV’s would later struggle with. By now I was catching up to guys in the row ahead
of me and was able to get around a couple where the trail opened up. The club had
built some water breaks on the wide trail, not nearly as steep as what I had seen the
previous weekend at White Rock but a bit sketchier because of rocks that awaited in
the landing zone. I flew over the first break in 4th gear, the second one in 3rd, and
braked hard to make the next turn. The KX front brake was flat-out awesome, very
confidence-inspiring, and the bike handled superbly through the high-speed choppy
trails.
Near the back corner of the club property, I looked for an arrow split-off that I had seen
during my walk around the course. The club’s intention here was unclear, as the
arrows pointing left were barely visible unless you knew they were there. The main
route was longer, but the shorter route was more technical and had a nasty mud hole.
I saw bikes up ahead of me, so I took the shorter route through the mud hole and
beat several of them to a tricky downhill off-camber. But as I would discover on the
next lap, there was a check set up at the spot where the two trails converged. I had
scouted an inside line where the trail dropped off, but that line bypassed the
checkpoint. I didn’t even realize it was there on the first lap and blew right by it. From
then on, I took the longer route.
The trail zigzagged through the north end of the property until we reached the second
checkpoint at the far northwest corner of the club grounds. After a 5th gear run along
the perimeter of the property, we turned back into the woods. Just before the big water
hole was a tight, slick lefthander that I thought I could negotiate at speed by throwing
the KX into the berm and scrub some speed. Slow down I did, as the bike slid out
from under me and blocked the trail, with the front end pointed in the wrong direction.
The end of the left handguard was firmly planted a few inches into the clay, and it took
two tries to jerk it loose. I got it turned around after two riders passed by and I charged
through the center of the mud hole. The only good thing about Belleville clay is that it’s
firm, which kept me from sinking in the water. Throughout the rest of the race I was
able to take the same line through the center of the hole.
In the last mile of the course, the slime was a little nastier and it took some effort to
keep the bike going straight. None of the mud was particularly deep, just slick. But I
had put on the fattest Michelin S-12 rear tire I could find and hooked up great. The next
few laps were more of the same, but during the first hour of the race my clutch hand
felt tired. The KX is a little more work when things get technical, as it likes to be
revved. Thoughts of an aftermarket hydraulic clutch passed through my head while I
endured the pain in my left hand. But halfway through the race the pain disappeared
and I never noticed my clutch hand again. Around that same time, Dwayne Parish,
who had started a couple minutes ahead of me, soon was visible just before
checkpoint #1. I followed him for a couple minutes until the trail opened up and I was
able to make the pass by out-braking him to the next corner.
The only spot in the course that had to be re-routed was a small hill where a deep rut
was developing at the base. Some of the less experienced riders were getting hung
up there, but the course officials reacted quickly to keep guys like me from using them
as traction and marked a different way up the hill. Another interesting spot was just
before the point where I had crashed on the first lap, which was near the end of the
high-speed section after checkpoint #2. It was a sweeping left turn with a nice little rut
to lean into, but somewhere around the seventh lap I was coming up on a guy pretty
fast and wanted to beat him to the mud hole. He took the established line while I went
wide around the turn in 4th gear, outside the rut, and executed my best imitation of a
power slide. A speedway racer would have giggled in amusement, but my near slide-
out in 4th gear was enough to scare the other guy into letting me around.
A couple of the fast guys on the first row lapped me about 75 minutes into the race,
while I was following a Honda thumper on the TT track. The Honda guy had a pretty
good pace going, and I wasn’t able to pass him until the next lap. As the race wore
on, I rode well and felt good. That KX hit has become addictive, as has the strong front
brake. The rain held off until the checkered flag came out and I was able to load up
the bike and change clothes while it was still dry. The peewee race following the
initial rain shower left me with a lasting impression of Belleville. A little guy on a PW50
was coming off the TT track, his front tire packing so much clay that his forks were
acting as mud wipers. That, my friend, is the Belleville I know and love (sort of).
White Rock Enduro
Belleville, Illinois
Belleville, Illinois
| They call it Spectator Hill |
| Yes, it's a thumb, and yes, those are pins. |