| 2004 Race Reports |
April 25, 2004
Cornstock 100
Casey, Illinois
10th of 14 in +30A
One of the many differences between what I do in the woods, versus what a
motocross guy does on track or a road rider does on twisty back roads, is how I am
perceived by my neighbors. Motocross guys and sport bike riders come home and
get just a passing a glance from generally uninterested neighbors, as more often
than not their bikes make it back looking fairly much the same as when they left the
garage. Woods guys like me, on the other hand, tend to get a different reaction at the
end of the day, especially after an event like the Cornstock 100 near Casey, Illinois. It’
s not so much a reaction from my neighbors anymore, as they’re pretty well
accustomed to my off road habit. Instead, it mostly comes from friends and relatives
of neighbors who can’t fathom how a motorcycle could completely lose its color in
what would appear to be baptism by mud pit. I call it The Look. If you’re a woods
racer, you know what I’m talking about. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open, intense
staring in you and your bike’s direction. It is the expression that screams “That Guy is
Out of His Freakin' Mind!!” If they’re not saying it aloud, they’re thinking it. And you
know what? They’re probably right. When I pulled into my driveway on Sunday
evening, the Harley-riding son-in-law of my neighbor across the street was sporting
The Look.
The Cornstock 100 was billed as the first annual endurance race of its kind at Lincoln
Trail Motosports, an off-road area in Eastern Illinois about two hours from my house.
The race flier described the event as “100 miles of tight, technical woods, hills and
hollows, motocross and grass track, creeks and fields plus tons of fun.” The last part
might have been correct if not for a couple inches of rain in the days leading up to the
race. The race was shortened to 80 miles (10 laps) or 5 hours, whichever came first.
Even though the sun was shining and the wind was blowing steadily, the trails were
soggy. I parked a couple trucks down from fast guy John Yarnell and slopped through
the muck to sign up at motocross track. On the way back to my truck I walked a small
portion of the woods trails and found exactly what I expected: mud, and lots of it. I
was, after all, in Illinois
The starting area was set in the middle of an open field about ¼ mile long. By the
time the race was to begin, the sun and wind had mostly dried out the field’s surface.
I signed up for Vet A and was lined up on the first row with the other 25 or so riders in
the various A classes. When the green flag dropped, we sprinted for about 300 yards
to what was a grass track for the first couple riders and a mud track for the rest of us.
As we jockeyed for position in the grass, I ended up behind John Yarnell as we
dropped down into a narrow creek. I followed him and the rest of the lead pack in a
single file line down the center of the shallow, curvy stream. Just after exiting the
creek, we came upon the first checkpoint. Our group was packed so tightly that we
had to wait in line for the single checkpoint lady to mark our fender-mounted
scorecards. At this point the mud wasn't too much of an obstacle since we were the
first riders to navigate the trail, but potential trouble spots were already evident. Once
such point was a downstream crossing of the same creek we had ridden through,
which was developing some deep ruts after only a dozen or so guys had passed
through it.
Next up was a section that took us in and out of another creek, where at one point I
tried to climb out of the water and came to an abrupt halt against the creek bank. The
ATV race from the previous day had left a rut that turned into a two-foot vertical wall of
mud that I couldn't get over. So I had to pull the front wheel back and find another way
out, which I could now see was as simple as crossing the creek about 10 feet sooner
than my first attempt. Yarnell and the rest of the pack left me at that point, but a couple
miles later I found John at the bottom of a ravine, hopelessly stuck in the mud. I was
able to descend the ravine and make it up the other side, where I parked the bike
against a tree and went back to help John out of his mud hole. The back tire was
buried, and as much as we tried, it wouldn't come out. A couple minutes later,
another of John’s buddies came upon us and stopped to help. Between the three of
us, we got the bike turned around about 90 degrees, and with it now heading down
the center of the ravine we got it started and pushed out of the muck.
I continued on while John caught his breath. The trail led us in and out of the woods,
through some grass tracks, and eventually back near the staging area. The final half-
mile of the lap was on the motocross track, which was complete slop. A guy on a
Honda CRF caught and passed me on the track and then slid out going around a
corner. The CRF stopped on its side at the top of a small jump, but the guy slid off the
track. When I passed by, he was climbing back on the track while the 4-stroke
continued to idle perfectly. I rolled over most of the jumps, exited the track and began
lap two. The going was a slower in some places where deep ruts were developing,
but faster in other sections where the sun was able to reach the ground. Most of the
woods trails seemed to have a common theme: ride on top of a ridge, then drop
down into a steep ravine and try to get up the other side without either getting stuck at
the bottom or losing traction on the uphill. This happened over and over again. I had a
couple of close calls, but my big fat Michelin S-12 chewed its way to the top of every
hill I attempted on that second lap. I did manage to biff it over a 16-inch log and also
did a graceful ground slide just before the motocross track. MHSC regular Dwayne
Parish caught up to me while I was restarting the KX and we had some fun together
on the motocross track while finishing up our second lap.
Somewhere at the beginning of my third lap, I pushed on rear brake pedal and felt no
resistance at all. The rear brake was completely gone, despite the new brake pads I’
d put on the night before. It was pretty slow going after that, and scary as hell the time
I went down a steep hill with a hard left turn at the bottom, feeling no rear brake and
very little front brake. Missing the turn would have taken me down into a nasty gully, so
the fear factor was set on “Max. Tight Sphincter” until I was able to get the bike down
the hill without sliding down into a gully. The checkpoint workers tried their best to
recommend the best ways around upcoming obstacles, but some of the instructions
were a little difficult to understand. “Go down the hill, around the tree, then back up the
hill and over, then down again and cross the creek and you’ll be fine.” Riiiiight. In the
second half of the lap I finally found a hill I couldn't get up on the first try and had to
drag the bike down the side of the hill. Near the end of the lap were a couple of
crossings of the widest creek on the property, with many spectators lining its banks.
One friendly guy pointed out a line, but of course I ignored him and tried the same line
I’d taken twice before. This innocuous-appearing line had been dug out deep enough
to uncover a tree root that I hit so hard with my front wheel that I slid forward and gave
myself the proverbial tank-slapper. Ouch. I finished up the lap and called it a day.
Despite the nasty conditions, I enjoyed my three laps. My ventures into Illinois are
often for the purpose of honing my mud riding skills, and the Cornstock 100 (or 80)
did not disappoint.
May 2, 2004
Polo, Missouri
5th of 12 in A-Sportsman
A hare scramble, by its nature, is a battle among individuals. We challenge each
other and we aspire to be faster than the guy parked next to us on the starting line.
Sometimes we say it’s just for fun, but if that were the case we wouldn't go racing. No
matter how we justify our reasons for racing, somewhere inside all of us, we want to
see how we stack up against other riders.
But other times, our battles are less with each other and more with that old battle-ax
called Mother Nature. She had already dropped a couple inches of rain on the Polo
area, so I expected mud. I expected ruts. Some deep water, maybe. But we got more
than that. Way more. Partly cloudy skies during my four-hour drive gave way to
darkness as I pulled into the staging area. The rain that had dampened the area was
coming back. Sprinkles began while I was standing in the sign-up line, but for the
most part the raindrops left about as fast as they arrived. Kevin Ruckdeschell's KTM
was showing very little orange after arriving back from his initial course marshal
duties. I’m a firm supporter of the practice lap under just about any conditions, so
Kevin’s bike didn't deter me. I signed up, geared up, and took off to see what the
course looked like.
I saw mud, and lots of it. I also saw plenty of rocks. Normally this is a good thing, but
as I would discover later on, it was actually a very bad combination. Another bad
association was mud and open pastures. Again, usually pastures are good, a
chance to catch your breath before heading back into the woods. But after the practice
lap I had so much clay and grass attached to my KX250 that it looked like a shrine to
the adobe brick gods. Grass caught up around the countershaft sprocket was actually
smoking when I returned to my truck.
Another interesting feature of the course was a pair of bridges constructed across a
ditch. The course designers used very good planning here, anticipating a scenario in
which one rider fell over while crossing the bridge. The second bridge would be
available to prevent any bottlenecks. I tested this scenario for myself on the practice
lap. While crossing one of the bridges, which were now covered in a layer of slime,
my back wheel slid out so quickly that I was on the ground before I even knew what
happened. Again, the bridge builders took into account the abilities (or lack thereof) of
guys like me and nailed boards along the edges to keep our wheels from sliding
completely off the bridge and down into the ditch. But even their superior design skills
were no match for the skills of riders like Tracy Bauman, who was gifted enough to
utilize not one, but BOTH bridges at the same time (this according to Kevin
Richdeschell who claims to have video evidence of the feat).
After the practice lap I wiped off the mud and grass from my fancy Devol radiator
guards, which continued their excellent job of protecting my radiators but were
already being enclosed by the natural brick that was Polo’s terrain. The race began
right on time, and off the starting line I assumed my usual position in the middle of
the pack. Our first challenge was a creek filled with rock ledges, and just after
dropping down into it my front wheel slid out. The bike and I performed a graceful
slide down the creek, much to the delight of numerous spectators. The other riders
left quickly while I remounted. Kevin Ruckdeschell was standing along the creek
bank, about 100 feet downstream, and offered some insightful advice: “It’s a two-hour
race!” That it was, and in the second hour of the race my little spill would be virtually
meaningless, a faint memory. But at the time I was a little annoyed, especially
because I was completely covered in water and had only ridden about 200 yards. I
restarted the engine and charged through the creek, eventually catching up to my
class several miles later.
Despite the wet conditions, the course was in good shape. After each of the 250 or so
riders passed over the trails, I was confident the mud would turn from slimy to tacky in
short order. But first lap was slick. Two short climbs were extra tricky, each involving
hills littered with rocks. Unlike my previous race at the Cornstock 100, where the
climbs were doable as long as I chose a clear line, Polo’s mud was mixed with
slippery rocks. Fresh, seemingly clean routes up hillsides did not guaranty a
successful climb. On the initial lap I had no problems with any hills but the next laps
would be much more difficult.
I completed the first lap near the back of the pack, as expected, but began to make
some progress on the second lap. By this time the trail was broken in as well as it
would get, but a couple of mistakes slowed my pace. The main line up one of the
tricky hills became just about impossible, and I had to drag my KX250 down the hill
for a second attempt. In the last half of the lap, which contained the deepest ruts, I
saw what appeared to be a little shortcut around a corner. It converged with the main
trail next to the pair of bridges, but my path was blocked by a large V-shaped tree
branch lying at an angle. My front wheel would slide to the side each time I tried to
cross the branch. After a minute or so of struggling, I was able to lift up the branch
with one hand and shove it down into the ditch. With a clear path to the bridges, I
continued on and finished the lap in 5th place.
Lap 3 appeared to be more of the same until about the halfway point. I saw a bright
flash of lightening, then a huge crash of thunder and the skies let loose. As the wind
picked up, I noticed small white balls bouncing on the ground, then realized it was
hail. The pea-sized projectiles didn't last long, but they hurt, mostly the stuff that made
it into my helmet. After the hail ended, the rain and lightening continued for much of
the rest of the lap. Somehow I was able to ride in these nasty conditions with few
mistakes and was actually having some fun, despite a few tough spots where the
lines were getting very creative. Most of the problem areas started with a small gully
or a short hill, and the clay-based soil offered little traction through those areas.
Near the end of this lap I thought the race might end early because of the lightening,
but I was sent on for a fourth lap. After all, we are the MHSC: hail and bolts of
lightening be damned, we finish what we started! Although the rain had let up,
enough water had soaked into the trails that traction was considerably less than it
had been. In fact, I seemed to have been riding faster when the rain was pouring. The
first half of the lap was slick but rideable as long as I avoided a few nasty ruts up
creek beds and chose good lines up the hills. But the second half of the lap was
worse. Much worse. The trails in this part of the course were in swampy areas where
deep ruts had developed. The lines around the mud holes were branching out quite
far from the main trail .
My first time-consuming trouble spot was a short run up a rocky hill that had to be
climbed with a hard left turn and very little approach. I saw several guys hung up
there, some in the final stages of giving up and dropping the bikes on their sides. To
avoid this traffic I continued past the main lines up the hill and tried to find a better
place to climb. The hill was mildly steep and would not have been much of a
challenge in dry conditions, but after the rain it was extremely difficult. I rode toward an
area away from the main routes up the hill that looked promising. But suddenly I
noticed a fence blocking my path. I had no choice but to attempt a run up the hill while
riding parallel to the fence. On my first try I got about halfway up before losing traction.
I rolled back down the hill, found a slightly different line, and opened the throttle all the
way. This time I made it nearly to the top but got hung up on some fallen trees. I
struggled to get the bike over the logs as the engine began to heat up. I made it
through just as the Holeshot King, Doug Stone, lapped me.
I battled on, trying to pick good lines and keep up my momentum, but the course was
turning into one long rut. In some places the ruts were relatively shallow where the
clay was packed down, but our tires were polishing it to a nice, slick shine. I would
have better luck riding with skis attached to my boots. I had one more problem with a
short, rocky hill near the end, requiring two attempts to get past it, and finally finished
the lap and the race. My bike was about 10 shades of black. The chain had gathered
so much mud around the countershaft sprocket that the gear shifter was barely
detectable. On the ride home I witnessed the faces of many individuals obviously
confused as to how a motorcycle could gather so much mud. But from the
perspective of anyone who raced at Polo, my bike was just one of many that were in
need of good power washings and lengthy apologies from their owners. Polo was a
classic.
Cornstock 100
Casey, Illinois
10th of 14 in +30A
One of the many differences between what I do in the woods, versus what a
motocross guy does on track or a road rider does on twisty back roads, is how I am
perceived by my neighbors. Motocross guys and sport bike riders come home and
get just a passing a glance from generally uninterested neighbors, as more often
than not their bikes make it back looking fairly much the same as when they left the
garage. Woods guys like me, on the other hand, tend to get a different reaction at the
end of the day, especially after an event like the Cornstock 100 near Casey, Illinois. It’
s not so much a reaction from my neighbors anymore, as they’re pretty well
accustomed to my off road habit. Instead, it mostly comes from friends and relatives
of neighbors who can’t fathom how a motorcycle could completely lose its color in
what would appear to be baptism by mud pit. I call it The Look. If you’re a woods
racer, you know what I’m talking about. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open, intense
staring in you and your bike’s direction. It is the expression that screams “That Guy is
Out of His Freakin' Mind!!” If they’re not saying it aloud, they’re thinking it. And you
know what? They’re probably right. When I pulled into my driveway on Sunday
evening, the Harley-riding son-in-law of my neighbor across the street was sporting
The Look.
The Cornstock 100 was billed as the first annual endurance race of its kind at Lincoln
Trail Motosports, an off-road area in Eastern Illinois about two hours from my house.
The race flier described the event as “100 miles of tight, technical woods, hills and
hollows, motocross and grass track, creeks and fields plus tons of fun.” The last part
might have been correct if not for a couple inches of rain in the days leading up to the
race. The race was shortened to 80 miles (10 laps) or 5 hours, whichever came first.
Even though the sun was shining and the wind was blowing steadily, the trails were
soggy. I parked a couple trucks down from fast guy John Yarnell and slopped through
the muck to sign up at motocross track. On the way back to my truck I walked a small
portion of the woods trails and found exactly what I expected: mud, and lots of it. I
was, after all, in Illinois
The starting area was set in the middle of an open field about ¼ mile long. By the
time the race was to begin, the sun and wind had mostly dried out the field’s surface.
I signed up for Vet A and was lined up on the first row with the other 25 or so riders in
the various A classes. When the green flag dropped, we sprinted for about 300 yards
to what was a grass track for the first couple riders and a mud track for the rest of us.
As we jockeyed for position in the grass, I ended up behind John Yarnell as we
dropped down into a narrow creek. I followed him and the rest of the lead pack in a
single file line down the center of the shallow, curvy stream. Just after exiting the
creek, we came upon the first checkpoint. Our group was packed so tightly that we
had to wait in line for the single checkpoint lady to mark our fender-mounted
scorecards. At this point the mud wasn't too much of an obstacle since we were the
first riders to navigate the trail, but potential trouble spots were already evident. Once
such point was a downstream crossing of the same creek we had ridden through,
which was developing some deep ruts after only a dozen or so guys had passed
through it.
Next up was a section that took us in and out of another creek, where at one point I
tried to climb out of the water and came to an abrupt halt against the creek bank. The
ATV race from the previous day had left a rut that turned into a two-foot vertical wall of
mud that I couldn't get over. So I had to pull the front wheel back and find another way
out, which I could now see was as simple as crossing the creek about 10 feet sooner
than my first attempt. Yarnell and the rest of the pack left me at that point, but a couple
miles later I found John at the bottom of a ravine, hopelessly stuck in the mud. I was
able to descend the ravine and make it up the other side, where I parked the bike
against a tree and went back to help John out of his mud hole. The back tire was
buried, and as much as we tried, it wouldn't come out. A couple minutes later,
another of John’s buddies came upon us and stopped to help. Between the three of
us, we got the bike turned around about 90 degrees, and with it now heading down
the center of the ravine we got it started and pushed out of the muck.
I continued on while John caught his breath. The trail led us in and out of the woods,
through some grass tracks, and eventually back near the staging area. The final half-
mile of the lap was on the motocross track, which was complete slop. A guy on a
Honda CRF caught and passed me on the track and then slid out going around a
corner. The CRF stopped on its side at the top of a small jump, but the guy slid off the
track. When I passed by, he was climbing back on the track while the 4-stroke
continued to idle perfectly. I rolled over most of the jumps, exited the track and began
lap two. The going was a slower in some places where deep ruts were developing,
but faster in other sections where the sun was able to reach the ground. Most of the
woods trails seemed to have a common theme: ride on top of a ridge, then drop
down into a steep ravine and try to get up the other side without either getting stuck at
the bottom or losing traction on the uphill. This happened over and over again. I had a
couple of close calls, but my big fat Michelin S-12 chewed its way to the top of every
hill I attempted on that second lap. I did manage to biff it over a 16-inch log and also
did a graceful ground slide just before the motocross track. MHSC regular Dwayne
Parish caught up to me while I was restarting the KX and we had some fun together
on the motocross track while finishing up our second lap.
Somewhere at the beginning of my third lap, I pushed on rear brake pedal and felt no
resistance at all. The rear brake was completely gone, despite the new brake pads I’
d put on the night before. It was pretty slow going after that, and scary as hell the time
I went down a steep hill with a hard left turn at the bottom, feeling no rear brake and
very little front brake. Missing the turn would have taken me down into a nasty gully, so
the fear factor was set on “Max. Tight Sphincter” until I was able to get the bike down
the hill without sliding down into a gully. The checkpoint workers tried their best to
recommend the best ways around upcoming obstacles, but some of the instructions
were a little difficult to understand. “Go down the hill, around the tree, then back up the
hill and over, then down again and cross the creek and you’ll be fine.” Riiiiight. In the
second half of the lap I finally found a hill I couldn't get up on the first try and had to
drag the bike down the side of the hill. Near the end of the lap were a couple of
crossings of the widest creek on the property, with many spectators lining its banks.
One friendly guy pointed out a line, but of course I ignored him and tried the same line
I’d taken twice before. This innocuous-appearing line had been dug out deep enough
to uncover a tree root that I hit so hard with my front wheel that I slid forward and gave
myself the proverbial tank-slapper. Ouch. I finished up the lap and called it a day.
Despite the nasty conditions, I enjoyed my three laps. My ventures into Illinois are
often for the purpose of honing my mud riding skills, and the Cornstock 100 (or 80)
did not disappoint.
May 2, 2004
Polo, Missouri
5th of 12 in A-Sportsman
A hare scramble, by its nature, is a battle among individuals. We challenge each
other and we aspire to be faster than the guy parked next to us on the starting line.
Sometimes we say it’s just for fun, but if that were the case we wouldn't go racing. No
matter how we justify our reasons for racing, somewhere inside all of us, we want to
see how we stack up against other riders.
But other times, our battles are less with each other and more with that old battle-ax
called Mother Nature. She had already dropped a couple inches of rain on the Polo
area, so I expected mud. I expected ruts. Some deep water, maybe. But we got more
than that. Way more. Partly cloudy skies during my four-hour drive gave way to
darkness as I pulled into the staging area. The rain that had dampened the area was
coming back. Sprinkles began while I was standing in the sign-up line, but for the
most part the raindrops left about as fast as they arrived. Kevin Ruckdeschell's KTM
was showing very little orange after arriving back from his initial course marshal
duties. I’m a firm supporter of the practice lap under just about any conditions, so
Kevin’s bike didn't deter me. I signed up, geared up, and took off to see what the
course looked like.
I saw mud, and lots of it. I also saw plenty of rocks. Normally this is a good thing, but
as I would discover later on, it was actually a very bad combination. Another bad
association was mud and open pastures. Again, usually pastures are good, a
chance to catch your breath before heading back into the woods. But after the practice
lap I had so much clay and grass attached to my KX250 that it looked like a shrine to
the adobe brick gods. Grass caught up around the countershaft sprocket was actually
smoking when I returned to my truck.
Another interesting feature of the course was a pair of bridges constructed across a
ditch. The course designers used very good planning here, anticipating a scenario in
which one rider fell over while crossing the bridge. The second bridge would be
available to prevent any bottlenecks. I tested this scenario for myself on the practice
lap. While crossing one of the bridges, which were now covered in a layer of slime,
my back wheel slid out so quickly that I was on the ground before I even knew what
happened. Again, the bridge builders took into account the abilities (or lack thereof) of
guys like me and nailed boards along the edges to keep our wheels from sliding
completely off the bridge and down into the ditch. But even their superior design skills
were no match for the skills of riders like Tracy Bauman, who was gifted enough to
utilize not one, but BOTH bridges at the same time (this according to Kevin
Richdeschell who claims to have video evidence of the feat).
After the practice lap I wiped off the mud and grass from my fancy Devol radiator
guards, which continued their excellent job of protecting my radiators but were
already being enclosed by the natural brick that was Polo’s terrain. The race began
right on time, and off the starting line I assumed my usual position in the middle of
the pack. Our first challenge was a creek filled with rock ledges, and just after
dropping down into it my front wheel slid out. The bike and I performed a graceful
slide down the creek, much to the delight of numerous spectators. The other riders
left quickly while I remounted. Kevin Ruckdeschell was standing along the creek
bank, about 100 feet downstream, and offered some insightful advice: “It’s a two-hour
race!” That it was, and in the second hour of the race my little spill would be virtually
meaningless, a faint memory. But at the time I was a little annoyed, especially
because I was completely covered in water and had only ridden about 200 yards. I
restarted the engine and charged through the creek, eventually catching up to my
class several miles later.
Despite the wet conditions, the course was in good shape. After each of the 250 or so
riders passed over the trails, I was confident the mud would turn from slimy to tacky in
short order. But first lap was slick. Two short climbs were extra tricky, each involving
hills littered with rocks. Unlike my previous race at the Cornstock 100, where the
climbs were doable as long as I chose a clear line, Polo’s mud was mixed with
slippery rocks. Fresh, seemingly clean routes up hillsides did not guaranty a
successful climb. On the initial lap I had no problems with any hills but the next laps
would be much more difficult.
I completed the first lap near the back of the pack, as expected, but began to make
some progress on the second lap. By this time the trail was broken in as well as it
would get, but a couple of mistakes slowed my pace. The main line up one of the
tricky hills became just about impossible, and I had to drag my KX250 down the hill
for a second attempt. In the last half of the lap, which contained the deepest ruts, I
saw what appeared to be a little shortcut around a corner. It converged with the main
trail next to the pair of bridges, but my path was blocked by a large V-shaped tree
branch lying at an angle. My front wheel would slide to the side each time I tried to
cross the branch. After a minute or so of struggling, I was able to lift up the branch
with one hand and shove it down into the ditch. With a clear path to the bridges, I
continued on and finished the lap in 5th place.
Lap 3 appeared to be more of the same until about the halfway point. I saw a bright
flash of lightening, then a huge crash of thunder and the skies let loose. As the wind
picked up, I noticed small white balls bouncing on the ground, then realized it was
hail. The pea-sized projectiles didn't last long, but they hurt, mostly the stuff that made
it into my helmet. After the hail ended, the rain and lightening continued for much of
the rest of the lap. Somehow I was able to ride in these nasty conditions with few
mistakes and was actually having some fun, despite a few tough spots where the
lines were getting very creative. Most of the problem areas started with a small gully
or a short hill, and the clay-based soil offered little traction through those areas.
Near the end of this lap I thought the race might end early because of the lightening,
but I was sent on for a fourth lap. After all, we are the MHSC: hail and bolts of
lightening be damned, we finish what we started! Although the rain had let up,
enough water had soaked into the trails that traction was considerably less than it
had been. In fact, I seemed to have been riding faster when the rain was pouring. The
first half of the lap was slick but rideable as long as I avoided a few nasty ruts up
creek beds and chose good lines up the hills. But the second half of the lap was
worse. Much worse. The trails in this part of the course were in swampy areas where
deep ruts had developed. The lines around the mud holes were branching out quite
far from the main trail .
My first time-consuming trouble spot was a short run up a rocky hill that had to be
climbed with a hard left turn and very little approach. I saw several guys hung up
there, some in the final stages of giving up and dropping the bikes on their sides. To
avoid this traffic I continued past the main lines up the hill and tried to find a better
place to climb. The hill was mildly steep and would not have been much of a
challenge in dry conditions, but after the rain it was extremely difficult. I rode toward an
area away from the main routes up the hill that looked promising. But suddenly I
noticed a fence blocking my path. I had no choice but to attempt a run up the hill while
riding parallel to the fence. On my first try I got about halfway up before losing traction.
I rolled back down the hill, found a slightly different line, and opened the throttle all the
way. This time I made it nearly to the top but got hung up on some fallen trees. I
struggled to get the bike over the logs as the engine began to heat up. I made it
through just as the Holeshot King, Doug Stone, lapped me.
I battled on, trying to pick good lines and keep up my momentum, but the course was
turning into one long rut. In some places the ruts were relatively shallow where the
clay was packed down, but our tires were polishing it to a nice, slick shine. I would
have better luck riding with skis attached to my boots. I had one more problem with a
short, rocky hill near the end, requiring two attempts to get past it, and finally finished
the lap and the race. My bike was about 10 shades of black. The chain had gathered
so much mud around the countershaft sprocket that the gear shifter was barely
detectable. On the ride home I witnessed the faces of many individuals obviously
confused as to how a motorcycle could gather so much mud. But from the
perspective of anyone who raced at Polo, my bike was just one of many that were in
need of good power washings and lengthy apologies from their owners. Polo was a
classic.
Casey, Illinois
Polo, Missouri
Polo, Missouri
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