| 2004 Race Reports |
 |  |  |
September 12, 2004
Fosterburg, Illinois
1st in A Intermediate
Getting a lot from a little is something the Splinter Creek Dirt Riders do very well.
Their club property near Fosterburg is no more than 80 acres, yet the hare scramble
loop laid out for this race was nearly 5 miles in length. With help from tight, twisty
trails and generous use of the club’s motocross track, the course challenged many
riders to complete laps in less than 20 minutes. The day before the race I was given
an advance preview, helping friend and club member Jeff Smith sort out potential
trouble spots. The course was a mix of old singletrack and ATV trails, some freshly
cut new trails, and a nearly full run through the motocross track.
In the pits on Sunday morning were several MHSC regulars who had made the trip
across the river. Matt Sellers, Mark Gay and Keith Voss were already set up when I
arrived, and John Yarnell pulled in shortly after I did. A fellow KX250 racer, John had
asked me to bring along my fancy $1.50 PVC fork cartridge holder and I has happy to
show it off. My limited abilities on a dirt bike may someday fade, but I will always be
the King of Cheap.
Mark Gay and I were the only A class participants on the first row of the starting line,
placed in its usual spot on the motocross course. The hare scrambler that I am, I had
little interest in doing anything with the jumps except rolling over them. This plan
presented a mild conundrum for a guy on the first row: presumably, the other race
participants and the spectators gathered in the stands would be expecting the fast
guys to clear the doubles and the tabletops. If that were the case, they would be
sorely disappointed. Neither Mark nor I attempted any of the doubles or tabletops.
The discomfort of the motocross track ended quickly when we entered the woods.
Mark led the way and kicked up some minor dust on the dry course. Club member
Mike Goforth, not entered in the race but willing to eat some dust for fun, dropped in
behind me. The bike route jumped in and out of the ATV course, and much like the
Florence race in July, the various lines the ATV’s had established during their race
weren't ideally suited for motorcycles. Mark was cruising a few seconds ahead and
Mike was on my back wheel the whole first lap. For a guy about to have rotator cuff
surgery, Mike was riding very well on his home course.
On the second lap, Mark began to pull away and John Yarnell caught up from the
second row. The course was gradually breaking in its own lines where the ATV’s had
ridden and the freshly cut new trails were gaining some definition. After John passed
me, he quickly faded from sight until about a mile from the motocross track, where he
was on his side. The dry hard-pack soil was a bit slick on flat corners, a discovery
John made the hard way.
I caught up to the first group of lappers on the third lap, passing one with no problem.
The second lapper missed a turn where someone had blown through yellow tape
and I followed him off the course. It was pretty clear I’d made a mistake after seeing
no arrows for about 100 yards. Up to that point the course had averaged about one
arrow every 20 feet. Also, I’d been following John Yarnell’s dust cloud after he had re-
mounted and re-passed me just before that, but when I got back on the marked trail I
was breathing clean air. The course weaved its way back to the motocross track next
to the scoring barrels, and the scorers confirmed that neither Mark nor John had
come through yet. I waited a few minutes until they arrived, first Mark and then John,
and dropped in behind them.
The next four laps went by relatively quickly, but each pass through the motocross
track came with the same anxiety. I wanted to at least try out my impression of a
motocrosser by attempting a double, but at every opportunity I let off the gas and did
each jump one at a time. The tallest gap between jumps was at the step-up jump
ahead of the tabletop in front of the stands. The idea was to launch off the step-up
jump, clear the gap between it and the face of the tabletop and land on the downside
(or top) of the tabletop. It seemed to be the most forgiving of all the doubles, but the
step-up jump had a steep face and potential for lots of air. I’d seen an ATV do this
jump in the morning race, but fear of heights kept me off the throttle as I approached
the face of the step-up. I rolled over it with a little too much speed on lap 5 or so and
dropped about six feet straight down into the chasm that separated the step-up from
the tabletop. My plush suspension, while excellent in the woods, was not designed
for six-foot drops. It was a hard landing.
On my 8th and final lap, I cruised along what were now familiar trails. This sense of
comfort on the course turned into near disaster about a mile after the motocross
track. In a fast, third gear section I braked hard to make the next turn and found a
slight problem. The front brake was gone, completely. The ensuing panic reminded
me of a story once told by Harold Kronseder of Germany, heir to the Krones bottling
equipment fortune. Harold, at the time solidifying his role in the Kronseder group of
companies as Chief Spender of the Family Fortune, was skiing in the Alps and
admiring the abilities of another skier weaving through the forest. An accomplished
skier himself, Harold darted into the woods to follow the guy. He kept the skier in view
for a short while, but the guy suddenly disappeared from sight. An instant later Harold
noticed a burst of color and, following another brief instant, realized what he’d just
seen: a parachute. Much like Harold frantically grasping for anything stationary to stop
his progress, I did the same on the KX250. Good fortune was with me, as the small
trees I slammed into broke before I did.
With that, I limped back to my truck and called it a day. For the first time in my racing
“career”, I took home some cash to go along with a trophy. It was a good day.
September 19, 2004
Eugene, Missouri
5th of 11 in A Sportsman
In the week leading up to a hare scramble I don’t usually give the race a whole lot of
critical thought, other than reviewing directions to the race site, planning when to
leave in the morning, and estimating how soon the first round of crap pains will come
during the drive. But in advance of the Eugene hare scramble I made the mistake of
checking the overall MHSC point standings. Decent showings at Marshfield and
Florence had put me comfortably within the top 40 overall, and with a few work
average points thrown in, it seemed reasonable that I could maintain my “official”
status as an A Sportsman even if I didn't earn any more points in the overall scoring.
After further review, however, I decided that only two top 20 finishes just wouldn't
satisfy me. I had to get another.
Two years before, during my run toward the Open B championship, Eugene had
been the first race I’d ever finished in the top 20 without the help of large quantities of
mud. So I knew it was possible to do it again. But how? I thrive on attrition in the
ranks…give me deep mud, punishing heat or blinding dust and my odds generally
improve. Advance reports from Eugene didn't mention any of that, only perfect course
conditions and a favorable weather forecast. So I decided to take a different
approach. Deep within the archives of the 1980’s section of my memory, sandwiched
between the Pythagorean Theorum and Dexy's Midnight Runners, was an 1883
quote from Lord Kelvin, a/k/a William Thompson, a physicist dude who lives eternal
in science textbooks around the world:
“…when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers,
you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot
express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.…”
So what does that have to do with racing hare scrambles? More than you might think,
actually. Consider this: after you master the ability to make good decisions on the
course, reduce your mistakes and raise your physical fitness to an adequate level,
improvement in technique is about all that’s left in the quest for more speed. And
there’s no better area to work on than that which we do more than anything else
during a race: turn, turn, turn. On a typical 10-mile course, it wouldn't be unusual to
have 500 directional changes each lap, which sounds like a lot until you do the math.
Then it’s only one turn every 106 feet. Actually, there could be even more, depending
on the course. Who knows, but if there really are 500 turns on a 10-mile course, then
there’s at least 500 opportunities for improvement. Turning one tenth of a second
quicker through a corner may not seem like much until you apply it 500 times, which
is 50 seconds per lap and 3 minutes, 20 seconds during a four-lap race.
Ready for more numbers? So far this season the time gap between 25th and 20th
overall has averaged 2:35, if you throw out the three races this year where mud
influenced the outcomes (Polo, Marshfield, and Florence). Throwing out my best (12)
and worst (105) overall finishes thus far in the season, my average result is 25th
overall. So, thanks to Lord Kelvin, during the week leading up to the Eugene race I
could express in numbers what I needed to do. Corner Speed was my mantra. Every
berm, each rutted corner or slightest edge would be attacked with greater
aggression. And I absolutely, positively would not be taking a bath in the creek. If that
meant walking the bike through deep water, so be it. My once-a-year limit on draining
the engine of water had already been used up at Florence in July, so no mas.
When Matt and I arrived at the race site and took a practice lap, the advance reports
proved to be correct. The course was in excellent condition and the weather was
beautiful. The first half of the course was similar to most Missouri races, with
moderately fast trails and plenty of rocks. Near the middle of the course was the first
pass through the infamous 30-foot-wide creek that ran the full length of the property. It
had already claimed its first victim in #85 Jeff Wendell, who was in the process of
removing the spark plug on his Gas Gas after taking an unplanned swim. Following
the creek was a grass track with about ten 180-degree turns, back and forth, one after
another. Next up was a long section of freshly cut, tight singletrack on the side of a
hill. It was so tight that the KX250 was spitting out a bit of coolant through its overflow
tube as the engine strained to keep cool. The course ended with a long pass through
the creek, which as usual was filled with boulders and slippery flat rock. The scoring
trailer was positioned next to the creek at about the midpoint of its straight run
through the property, and after being scored we would start a new lap by dropping
back down into the creek and doing another long, tricky pass through the most
boulder-iffic stretch.
On the starting line I picked a spot next to #266 John McDaniel who was trying out a
numberless KTM 200 instead of his usual 300. Making a rare appearance in the A
Sportsman class was last year’s Veteran champ #29 Steve Crews on his Kawasaki.
Kevin Ruckdeshell, bike-less for the first time in decades, greeted the A Sportsmen
on the line and asked for a show of hands of anyone under the age of 30. No hands.
When the 15-second board dropped, John was nearly a bike length ahead before I
was even moving. A couple more guys passed me in the short grass track leading up
to the woods. We ran at a modest pace in single file next to an old railroad grade,
then followed a section of singletrack used in past races. The course opened up
where it joined with old ATV trails. I caught up to Steve Crews and looked to pass
him, something that probably wouldn't have been possible had he been racing the
whole season. Slade Morlang, whose name will surely be used someday in a
Hollywood action movie (“Incidental Contact, starring The Rock as Slade Morlang, a
fearless bounty hunter seeking revenge for the brutal destruction of his lime-green I-
Pod….”), passed both of us as he made his charge to the front of the pack. Steve let
me around shortly after Slade’s pass and the pack began to spread out. I passed
John McDaniel and #237 Elston Moore after various hang-ups left them stopped
briefly along the trail, but John was on my back tire in no time. I held him off as we
entered the grass track switchbacks, and by that time a pair of KTM 200’s from the
200B class were already caught up to us. Ben Alexander and Jeremy Wisecup, both
destined for the A Intermediate class in ’05, got around me in the tight section of new
singletrack when I got hung up on a small tree. John also passed me and this trio of
KTM 200’s was long gone by the time I got moving again.
The tight singletrack ended where the long creek began, and I was extra cautious.
Behind me, Elston Moore and his bike were getting a taste for manure-rich creek
water. After checking into the scoring trailer and re-entering the creek, I downshifted
into first gear at the spot I drowned the bike last year. John Rohleder, a.k.a. Crazy
Jesus, was filming this section for what I can only assume will be years of laughs.
With the riders now spread out, I spent most of the second lap by myself. I managed
to keep my mind focused on riding hard, unlike some races where my thoughts
occasionally turn to topics such as television (did The Apprentice women win the first
task because they were led by a man, or in spite of him?), dating (I can’t believe that #!
*&^% did [insert coldhearted action here] to me!!), and other stuff (sure hope the port-
a-potties still have some TP in them). Kevin Ruckdeshell made an appearance in the
woods with video camera in hand, looking for photo-ops and shouting some words
of encouragement. Other than a minor slide-out around a slippery corner, I finished
the second lap without incident.
The third time around the course I began to lap some riders, most of who were very
accommodating about letting me by. I’d have to say that’s the most pleasant aspect
of riding on the third row each race – after the A’s and AA’s ahead of me start passing
the beginners and C-riders, by the time I get there the slower riders know the routine.
The section of tight singletrack was a difficult place to pass, but even then the slower
riders did their best to move over. There was a small gully in the middle of that
section that had two large, angular rocks at the bottom and about 12 inches between
them. On the first two passes I’d made some contact with these rocks, but the third
time through I smacked the right rock hard. I thought it was the pipe that took the hit,
but it was the skid plate, which I've now confirmed is worth its weight in water pumps.
I continued riding aggressively on the fourth and final lap. In the first part of that lap I
was surprised to see #10 Jon “Spud” Simons on a rather un-Husky-like bike. His
pace was fast enough that I would have followed him to the end, if needed, but Spud
let me by and I finished the lap with a final, very careful run through the creek. When
the class results were posted, I counted the number of races who’d finished the four
laps more quickly than me. For a top-20 finish, it was going to be close. When the
overall results were posted, I’d squeaked in by a mere 12 seconds over #588 Jake
Johnson in the A Intermediate class.
I give credit to Lord Kelvin.
Fosterburg, Illinois
1st in A Intermediate
Getting a lot from a little is something the Splinter Creek Dirt Riders do very well.
Their club property near Fosterburg is no more than 80 acres, yet the hare scramble
loop laid out for this race was nearly 5 miles in length. With help from tight, twisty
trails and generous use of the club’s motocross track, the course challenged many
riders to complete laps in less than 20 minutes. The day before the race I was given
an advance preview, helping friend and club member Jeff Smith sort out potential
trouble spots. The course was a mix of old singletrack and ATV trails, some freshly
cut new trails, and a nearly full run through the motocross track.
In the pits on Sunday morning were several MHSC regulars who had made the trip
across the river. Matt Sellers, Mark Gay and Keith Voss were already set up when I
arrived, and John Yarnell pulled in shortly after I did. A fellow KX250 racer, John had
asked me to bring along my fancy $1.50 PVC fork cartridge holder and I has happy to
show it off. My limited abilities on a dirt bike may someday fade, but I will always be
the King of Cheap.
Mark Gay and I were the only A class participants on the first row of the starting line,
placed in its usual spot on the motocross course. The hare scrambler that I am, I had
little interest in doing anything with the jumps except rolling over them. This plan
presented a mild conundrum for a guy on the first row: presumably, the other race
participants and the spectators gathered in the stands would be expecting the fast
guys to clear the doubles and the tabletops. If that were the case, they would be
sorely disappointed. Neither Mark nor I attempted any of the doubles or tabletops.
The discomfort of the motocross track ended quickly when we entered the woods.
Mark led the way and kicked up some minor dust on the dry course. Club member
Mike Goforth, not entered in the race but willing to eat some dust for fun, dropped in
behind me. The bike route jumped in and out of the ATV course, and much like the
Florence race in July, the various lines the ATV’s had established during their race
weren't ideally suited for motorcycles. Mark was cruising a few seconds ahead and
Mike was on my back wheel the whole first lap. For a guy about to have rotator cuff
surgery, Mike was riding very well on his home course.
On the second lap, Mark began to pull away and John Yarnell caught up from the
second row. The course was gradually breaking in its own lines where the ATV’s had
ridden and the freshly cut new trails were gaining some definition. After John passed
me, he quickly faded from sight until about a mile from the motocross track, where he
was on his side. The dry hard-pack soil was a bit slick on flat corners, a discovery
John made the hard way.
I caught up to the first group of lappers on the third lap, passing one with no problem.
The second lapper missed a turn where someone had blown through yellow tape
and I followed him off the course. It was pretty clear I’d made a mistake after seeing
no arrows for about 100 yards. Up to that point the course had averaged about one
arrow every 20 feet. Also, I’d been following John Yarnell’s dust cloud after he had re-
mounted and re-passed me just before that, but when I got back on the marked trail I
was breathing clean air. The course weaved its way back to the motocross track next
to the scoring barrels, and the scorers confirmed that neither Mark nor John had
come through yet. I waited a few minutes until they arrived, first Mark and then John,
and dropped in behind them.
The next four laps went by relatively quickly, but each pass through the motocross
track came with the same anxiety. I wanted to at least try out my impression of a
motocrosser by attempting a double, but at every opportunity I let off the gas and did
each jump one at a time. The tallest gap between jumps was at the step-up jump
ahead of the tabletop in front of the stands. The idea was to launch off the step-up
jump, clear the gap between it and the face of the tabletop and land on the downside
(or top) of the tabletop. It seemed to be the most forgiving of all the doubles, but the
step-up jump had a steep face and potential for lots of air. I’d seen an ATV do this
jump in the morning race, but fear of heights kept me off the throttle as I approached
the face of the step-up. I rolled over it with a little too much speed on lap 5 or so and
dropped about six feet straight down into the chasm that separated the step-up from
the tabletop. My plush suspension, while excellent in the woods, was not designed
for six-foot drops. It was a hard landing.
On my 8th and final lap, I cruised along what were now familiar trails. This sense of
comfort on the course turned into near disaster about a mile after the motocross
track. In a fast, third gear section I braked hard to make the next turn and found a
slight problem. The front brake was gone, completely. The ensuing panic reminded
me of a story once told by Harold Kronseder of Germany, heir to the Krones bottling
equipment fortune. Harold, at the time solidifying his role in the Kronseder group of
companies as Chief Spender of the Family Fortune, was skiing in the Alps and
admiring the abilities of another skier weaving through the forest. An accomplished
skier himself, Harold darted into the woods to follow the guy. He kept the skier in view
for a short while, but the guy suddenly disappeared from sight. An instant later Harold
noticed a burst of color and, following another brief instant, realized what he’d just
seen: a parachute. Much like Harold frantically grasping for anything stationary to stop
his progress, I did the same on the KX250. Good fortune was with me, as the small
trees I slammed into broke before I did.
With that, I limped back to my truck and called it a day. For the first time in my racing
“career”, I took home some cash to go along with a trophy. It was a good day.
September 19, 2004
Eugene, Missouri
5th of 11 in A Sportsman
In the week leading up to a hare scramble I don’t usually give the race a whole lot of
critical thought, other than reviewing directions to the race site, planning when to
leave in the morning, and estimating how soon the first round of crap pains will come
during the drive. But in advance of the Eugene hare scramble I made the mistake of
checking the overall MHSC point standings. Decent showings at Marshfield and
Florence had put me comfortably within the top 40 overall, and with a few work
average points thrown in, it seemed reasonable that I could maintain my “official”
status as an A Sportsman even if I didn't earn any more points in the overall scoring.
After further review, however, I decided that only two top 20 finishes just wouldn't
satisfy me. I had to get another.
Two years before, during my run toward the Open B championship, Eugene had
been the first race I’d ever finished in the top 20 without the help of large quantities of
mud. So I knew it was possible to do it again. But how? I thrive on attrition in the
ranks…give me deep mud, punishing heat or blinding dust and my odds generally
improve. Advance reports from Eugene didn't mention any of that, only perfect course
conditions and a favorable weather forecast. So I decided to take a different
approach. Deep within the archives of the 1980’s section of my memory, sandwiched
between the Pythagorean Theorum and Dexy's Midnight Runners, was an 1883
quote from Lord Kelvin, a/k/a William Thompson, a physicist dude who lives eternal
in science textbooks around the world:
“…when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers,
you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot
express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.…”
So what does that have to do with racing hare scrambles? More than you might think,
actually. Consider this: after you master the ability to make good decisions on the
course, reduce your mistakes and raise your physical fitness to an adequate level,
improvement in technique is about all that’s left in the quest for more speed. And
there’s no better area to work on than that which we do more than anything else
during a race: turn, turn, turn. On a typical 10-mile course, it wouldn't be unusual to
have 500 directional changes each lap, which sounds like a lot until you do the math.
Then it’s only one turn every 106 feet. Actually, there could be even more, depending
on the course. Who knows, but if there really are 500 turns on a 10-mile course, then
there’s at least 500 opportunities for improvement. Turning one tenth of a second
quicker through a corner may not seem like much until you apply it 500 times, which
is 50 seconds per lap and 3 minutes, 20 seconds during a four-lap race.
Ready for more numbers? So far this season the time gap between 25th and 20th
overall has averaged 2:35, if you throw out the three races this year where mud
influenced the outcomes (Polo, Marshfield, and Florence). Throwing out my best (12)
and worst (105) overall finishes thus far in the season, my average result is 25th
overall. So, thanks to Lord Kelvin, during the week leading up to the Eugene race I
could express in numbers what I needed to do. Corner Speed was my mantra. Every
berm, each rutted corner or slightest edge would be attacked with greater
aggression. And I absolutely, positively would not be taking a bath in the creek. If that
meant walking the bike through deep water, so be it. My once-a-year limit on draining
the engine of water had already been used up at Florence in July, so no mas.
When Matt and I arrived at the race site and took a practice lap, the advance reports
proved to be correct. The course was in excellent condition and the weather was
beautiful. The first half of the course was similar to most Missouri races, with
moderately fast trails and plenty of rocks. Near the middle of the course was the first
pass through the infamous 30-foot-wide creek that ran the full length of the property. It
had already claimed its first victim in #85 Jeff Wendell, who was in the process of
removing the spark plug on his Gas Gas after taking an unplanned swim. Following
the creek was a grass track with about ten 180-degree turns, back and forth, one after
another. Next up was a long section of freshly cut, tight singletrack on the side of a
hill. It was so tight that the KX250 was spitting out a bit of coolant through its overflow
tube as the engine strained to keep cool. The course ended with a long pass through
the creek, which as usual was filled with boulders and slippery flat rock. The scoring
trailer was positioned next to the creek at about the midpoint of its straight run
through the property, and after being scored we would start a new lap by dropping
back down into the creek and doing another long, tricky pass through the most
boulder-iffic stretch.
On the starting line I picked a spot next to #266 John McDaniel who was trying out a
numberless KTM 200 instead of his usual 300. Making a rare appearance in the A
Sportsman class was last year’s Veteran champ #29 Steve Crews on his Kawasaki.
Kevin Ruckdeshell, bike-less for the first time in decades, greeted the A Sportsmen
on the line and asked for a show of hands of anyone under the age of 30. No hands.
When the 15-second board dropped, John was nearly a bike length ahead before I
was even moving. A couple more guys passed me in the short grass track leading up
to the woods. We ran at a modest pace in single file next to an old railroad grade,
then followed a section of singletrack used in past races. The course opened up
where it joined with old ATV trails. I caught up to Steve Crews and looked to pass
him, something that probably wouldn't have been possible had he been racing the
whole season. Slade Morlang, whose name will surely be used someday in a
Hollywood action movie (“Incidental Contact, starring The Rock as Slade Morlang, a
fearless bounty hunter seeking revenge for the brutal destruction of his lime-green I-
Pod….”), passed both of us as he made his charge to the front of the pack. Steve let
me around shortly after Slade’s pass and the pack began to spread out. I passed
John McDaniel and #237 Elston Moore after various hang-ups left them stopped
briefly along the trail, but John was on my back tire in no time. I held him off as we
entered the grass track switchbacks, and by that time a pair of KTM 200’s from the
200B class were already caught up to us. Ben Alexander and Jeremy Wisecup, both
destined for the A Intermediate class in ’05, got around me in the tight section of new
singletrack when I got hung up on a small tree. John also passed me and this trio of
KTM 200’s was long gone by the time I got moving again.
The tight singletrack ended where the long creek began, and I was extra cautious.
Behind me, Elston Moore and his bike were getting a taste for manure-rich creek
water. After checking into the scoring trailer and re-entering the creek, I downshifted
into first gear at the spot I drowned the bike last year. John Rohleder, a.k.a. Crazy
Jesus, was filming this section for what I can only assume will be years of laughs.
With the riders now spread out, I spent most of the second lap by myself. I managed
to keep my mind focused on riding hard, unlike some races where my thoughts
occasionally turn to topics such as television (did The Apprentice women win the first
task because they were led by a man, or in spite of him?), dating (I can’t believe that #!
*&^% did [insert coldhearted action here] to me!!), and other stuff (sure hope the port-
a-potties still have some TP in them). Kevin Ruckdeshell made an appearance in the
woods with video camera in hand, looking for photo-ops and shouting some words
of encouragement. Other than a minor slide-out around a slippery corner, I finished
the second lap without incident.
The third time around the course I began to lap some riders, most of who were very
accommodating about letting me by. I’d have to say that’s the most pleasant aspect
of riding on the third row each race – after the A’s and AA’s ahead of me start passing
the beginners and C-riders, by the time I get there the slower riders know the routine.
The section of tight singletrack was a difficult place to pass, but even then the slower
riders did their best to move over. There was a small gully in the middle of that
section that had two large, angular rocks at the bottom and about 12 inches between
them. On the first two passes I’d made some contact with these rocks, but the third
time through I smacked the right rock hard. I thought it was the pipe that took the hit,
but it was the skid plate, which I've now confirmed is worth its weight in water pumps.
I continued riding aggressively on the fourth and final lap. In the first part of that lap I
was surprised to see #10 Jon “Spud” Simons on a rather un-Husky-like bike. His
pace was fast enough that I would have followed him to the end, if needed, but Spud
let me by and I finished the lap with a final, very careful run through the creek. When
the class results were posted, I counted the number of races who’d finished the four
laps more quickly than me. For a top-20 finish, it was going to be close. When the
overall results were posted, I’d squeaked in by a mere 12 seconds over #588 Jake
Johnson in the A Intermediate class.
I give credit to Lord Kelvin.
Fosterburg, Illinois
Eugene, Missouri
Eugene, Missouri
| Click on picture to see "before" and "after" pics |
