| 2005 Race Reports |
 |  |  |
July 24, 2005
Bloomingdale, Michigan
The hottest day of the year is destined to be a race day. Happens every time. I left my
apartment “home” at
7:30 a.m. and it was already 85 degrees. Later in the day, the temperature would
climb to 104. Bloomingdale, home of the Dutch Sport Park and host of Round 6 of the
National Hare Scrambles Championship, was a more reasonable 96 degrees, but it
was certainly not a dry heat. My best estimate of humidity on a given day is usually the
stench of my shirt, and on this day it was comparable to Patrick Ewing's jersey after
40 minutes on the basketball court. My guess: 90%. Actual humidity: 88%.
Along the drive to Dutch Sport Park, I noticed something odd: green. Most of the grass
in the Chicago area had been browned crisply by the combination of heat and
drought, but the Bloomingdale area was lush with greenery. Rain came over the
weekend, as evidenced by standing water along roadsides and a very wet motocross
track. After signup I walked across the track to check out the woods and nearly lost a
sandal. Inside the woods was slippery clay covering a stretch of heavily used trails.
After my brief walk through the woods, I had an odd feeling that those around me
knew something I didn't, like when you walk through a crowded Chicago train station
with toilet paper hanging out of your pants (by announcing these things to the
masses, the homeless do, in fact, add some value to society). At first it was just a
hunch, starting with the PA announcer warning that signup would end in a few
minutes. Strange…it was only 10:30 and the race wasn't set to start until 1:00. As I
lounged around my truck and chatted with the suburban Tinley Park guys parked next
to me, I noticed a disproportionate number of guys in full-on race gear. Why anyone
would want to be fully dressed in 96-degree weather 90 minutes prior to the start was
unclear to me, but hey, maybe that’s what they do in Michigan. After I dropped off a
gas jug in the pit area, guys were now riding around the staging area warming up
their bikes. Back at the truck, the helpful Tinley Park guys reminded me that we were
in the Eastern time zone. Oh, yeah...that. So I scrambled to get dressed, making it to
the starting line with time to spare.
On the starting line was the usual crop of big-name riders including Jason Raines,
the Garrahan brothers, Chuck Woodford and Shane “Knees are Highly Overrated”
Watts. All were fully shaded by a crop of umbrellas while most of the rest of the racers
baked in the hot sun. Talent and speed, that’s all it takes to stay cool. When the greed
flag dropped, I sped to the first turn in the middle of the pack. We curved through a
short grass track before entering the muddy motocross track. During the pre-race
interviews with selected fast guys, some expressed disappointment that the “big
jumps” had been taken out of the course on account of its wetness. For me, the
jumps that remained were plenty big. Whatever the fast guys were talking about, I
didn't want any part of to begin with. Even under challenging conditions, the Dutch
Sport track was a joy to ride. The jumps were practically manicured, with each face
perfectly groomed. The table tops had fairly steep angles, and each time I launched
my KX over the top, I sailed high and landed softly.
Inside the woods, I was hot, immediately. Within five minutes, every part of my body
was warm. Adding to the heat was tight and muddy trails – hard work under normal
conditions, excruciating under a scorching sun. Other than a few short sections
linking up the woods, I didn't use third gear. Come to think of it, since moving east of
the Mississippi, third gear inside the woods is a distant memory, like 10 miles on an
expressway without a toll booth.
The first lap was the same jockeying for position that is the typical start of most hare
scrambles, with the fast guys disappearing from sight quickly and the moderately fast
guys also disappearing rapidly. Then there’s me, the wannabe A rider still adjusting
to tight woods after 7 years of honing my rock-riding skills. Just when I was beginning
to feel moderately competent on some of the roughest courses in the Midwest, I
traded it all for a regular regiment of deep, fertile loam. On this day the course was
sometimes enjoyable, sometimes rutted like a Spring hare scramble in Illinois. None
of the course was particularly hilly, but a couple of short climbs were already
challenging on the first lap. Most began with a 90-degree turn, then 20 feet straight up.
After a couple brief runs through the motocross track, I was scanned in at the scoring
barrels, unsure whether or not I would do more than 2 laps. It was that hot and I was
that out of shape for the heat. My lack of heat tolerance was mostly a product of 70-
minute commutes to work and few evenings pedaling the mountain bike around the
hot streets of Naperville. Some might say heat is heat, but Chicago’s is tame by St.
Louis standards. I didn't want to stand, even on the motocross track. A series of
wimpy doubles made me look even wimpier as I rolled them, then grabbed a handful
of throttle on a straightaway just to show the crowd of onlookers that I knew how to
make the bike sound fast.
Back inside the woods, the trail was becoming tackier in some spots and more rutted
in others. While none of the ruts appeared to be of the bike-swallowing variety, the
effort of bobbling through them was enough to steal precious energy from my heat-
taxed body. In explaining the mud-rut phenomenon to the non-riding layperson, the
reaction is usually along the lines of “But doesn't the front wheel steer itself through
the ruts?” Yes, Einstein, it does. For about 1.3 seconds. Then it’s a combination of
body contortions, clutch control, and sheer will that takes a person through the rest of
the rut.
Near the end of the second lap, racers were already pulled over, searching for
anything resembling shade. The fast guys were still going fast, seemingly oblivious to
the heat. Jason Raines flew by me in an open field as if it were a cool spring morning.
At this point I was reaching the level of exhaustion where bladder control becomes
secondary. I wanted to pee in the worst way. Resisting the temptation, I soldiered on
for another lap but could wait no more on the fourth lap. I pulled over, turned my back
to the trail and let it all out. I hadn't felt so relieved since Lebanon in 2001.
In full-on spode mode, I finished my fourth lap and limped back to my truck after two
hours in the heat. Could I have done another hour? Probably, but the days of torturing
myself in the name of pride appear to be winding down. I cranked up the air
conditioning, cruised home, took a long shower and went to bed. Old people need
their sleep.
August 7, 2005
Ligonier, Indiana
4th of 8 in Vet A
A funny thing happens when you drive through the countryside around Ligonier,
Indiana. The power lines go past houses without stopping. Highways have wide
shoulders blanketed with long lines of dried-up horse dung. The people dress funny
– and that’s just the Amish folks. Kickin' it Old School has a slightly different meaning
in these parts. There’s the Amish, kickers of Old School long before it was cool.
Following close behind the Amish, very nearly in a literal sense, are old people. They
drive Cadillacs and Buicks at nearly the speeds of horses pulling buggies, visiting
Amish furniture shops, overnighting in Amish bed and breakfasts and dining on
authentic Amish cuisine. It’s big business.
Nestled within this Amish paradise is a nice little piece of wooded ground serving as
host to the 14th round (as I calculated it) of the District 15 hare scramble series. As I
walked part of the trail after signing up for the Vet A class, the course reminded me of
White City, Illinois. The woods were well established with relatively large trees
spaced far enough apart to make for some fun trails. As with much of northern
Indiana, elevation changes were moderate. The junior class was finishing its race
while I inspected the course, and the dirt looked perfect. After battling dust and heat
for most of the summer, these conditions were welcome relief.
We lined up to start in a small sandy field that was a little narrower than it needed to
be for the size of the A-class row. By the time I got myself to the line, the only open
spaces were far to the left or right. I squeezed in on the right side of the first row and
aimed my KX250 for a patch of brush-covered ground that would take me off the sand
for a brief instant. If all went as planned, the extra grip of the grassy dirt would propel
me past the guys struggling for traction in the center of the sand. As it turned out, it
almost worked. Of the 25-or-so guys on the front row, I arrived at the first turn in about
10th place (success, in my book). From there, things didn't pan out as planned. A
couple guys ahead of me, one on a Honda, tangled and went down. I squeezed by
both bikes, using at least one of them as traction but several other guys went past me
in the process. Later I would discover a line of red coloring on the top tube of my right
fork, proving that rubbing is, in fact, racing.
The next two hours were some of the most fun riding of the summer. Hardly any dust,
no mud to speak of, just moderately tight trails in a nice loamy soil. With no idea who
was in my class, I tried to ride aggressively and shake off some arm pump on the first
lap. The Kawasaki screamed up some short, sandy hills, rear wheel bouncing off tree
roots. Once again I was reminded that the 14/50 sprocket combo was probably a bit
tall for these types of trails. In Missouri, with faster trails and the occasional WFO
blast through open fields, I felt it necessary to keep up with the big four-stroke
thumpers with taller gearing on my close-ratio MX-style transmission. It did work, as
evidenced at Newark last year with Todd Corwin and his KTM thumper on my tail
through a quarter-mile stretch of pasture. The KX held him off that day but now the
gearing was keeping the KX250 just outside its preferred screaming range of RPM’s.
One of the more interesting features of the Ligonier course was a pair of dried-up
swamps, each a deep bed of peat that rivaled Morrison’s Moose Run. The first time I
blasted through it, I could have sworn it was wet. It sucked away horsepower like
Paris Hilton and a [edited for family-friendliness]. One pass by the field of racers was
enough to whoop it up and dig out some serious trenches. Had the swamps actually
been wet, I’m not sure the promoters would have run us through them at all. It was
the fastest section of the course but also the most demanding.
The club grounds contained a homebuilt motocross track used sparingly within the
marked course. Though my oft-professed dislike for moto-style jumps is well known
among my regular readers, I actually enjoyed this short section. One of the tabletop
jumps was just moderate enough to be enjoyable. The track doubled as the setup
point for entering the second of the two swamps and shortly after that, re-entry into the
woods. The bikes ahead of me kicked up a moderate dust on the track and a little
inside some parts of the woods, but it was mostly an enjoyable course with plenty of
visibility. I did make a few minor goofs, each of them slide-outs around corners and
one coming just after making a difficult pass in a tight section of woods.
Because of the heat (moderate, in my opinion), the promoters shortened the race to
90 minutes plus one lap. For me, this brought me into the scoring barrels for the final
time at about 5 minutes shy of two hours. After several tough races during a very hot
summer, this day kicked up the fun factor. Ligonier has now made it onto my highly
selective must-do list.
Bloomingdale, Michigan
The hottest day of the year is destined to be a race day. Happens every time. I left my
apartment “home” at
7:30 a.m. and it was already 85 degrees. Later in the day, the temperature would
climb to 104. Bloomingdale, home of the Dutch Sport Park and host of Round 6 of the
National Hare Scrambles Championship, was a more reasonable 96 degrees, but it
was certainly not a dry heat. My best estimate of humidity on a given day is usually the
stench of my shirt, and on this day it was comparable to Patrick Ewing's jersey after
40 minutes on the basketball court. My guess: 90%. Actual humidity: 88%.
Along the drive to Dutch Sport Park, I noticed something odd: green. Most of the grass
in the Chicago area had been browned crisply by the combination of heat and
drought, but the Bloomingdale area was lush with greenery. Rain came over the
weekend, as evidenced by standing water along roadsides and a very wet motocross
track. After signup I walked across the track to check out the woods and nearly lost a
sandal. Inside the woods was slippery clay covering a stretch of heavily used trails.
After my brief walk through the woods, I had an odd feeling that those around me
knew something I didn't, like when you walk through a crowded Chicago train station
with toilet paper hanging out of your pants (by announcing these things to the
masses, the homeless do, in fact, add some value to society). At first it was just a
hunch, starting with the PA announcer warning that signup would end in a few
minutes. Strange…it was only 10:30 and the race wasn't set to start until 1:00. As I
lounged around my truck and chatted with the suburban Tinley Park guys parked next
to me, I noticed a disproportionate number of guys in full-on race gear. Why anyone
would want to be fully dressed in 96-degree weather 90 minutes prior to the start was
unclear to me, but hey, maybe that’s what they do in Michigan. After I dropped off a
gas jug in the pit area, guys were now riding around the staging area warming up
their bikes. Back at the truck, the helpful Tinley Park guys reminded me that we were
in the Eastern time zone. Oh, yeah...that. So I scrambled to get dressed, making it to
the starting line with time to spare.
On the starting line was the usual crop of big-name riders including Jason Raines,
the Garrahan brothers, Chuck Woodford and Shane “Knees are Highly Overrated”
Watts. All were fully shaded by a crop of umbrellas while most of the rest of the racers
baked in the hot sun. Talent and speed, that’s all it takes to stay cool. When the greed
flag dropped, I sped to the first turn in the middle of the pack. We curved through a
short grass track before entering the muddy motocross track. During the pre-race
interviews with selected fast guys, some expressed disappointment that the “big
jumps” had been taken out of the course on account of its wetness. For me, the
jumps that remained were plenty big. Whatever the fast guys were talking about, I
didn't want any part of to begin with. Even under challenging conditions, the Dutch
Sport track was a joy to ride. The jumps were practically manicured, with each face
perfectly groomed. The table tops had fairly steep angles, and each time I launched
my KX over the top, I sailed high and landed softly.
Inside the woods, I was hot, immediately. Within five minutes, every part of my body
was warm. Adding to the heat was tight and muddy trails – hard work under normal
conditions, excruciating under a scorching sun. Other than a few short sections
linking up the woods, I didn't use third gear. Come to think of it, since moving east of
the Mississippi, third gear inside the woods is a distant memory, like 10 miles on an
expressway without a toll booth.
The first lap was the same jockeying for position that is the typical start of most hare
scrambles, with the fast guys disappearing from sight quickly and the moderately fast
guys also disappearing rapidly. Then there’s me, the wannabe A rider still adjusting
to tight woods after 7 years of honing my rock-riding skills. Just when I was beginning
to feel moderately competent on some of the roughest courses in the Midwest, I
traded it all for a regular regiment of deep, fertile loam. On this day the course was
sometimes enjoyable, sometimes rutted like a Spring hare scramble in Illinois. None
of the course was particularly hilly, but a couple of short climbs were already
challenging on the first lap. Most began with a 90-degree turn, then 20 feet straight up.
After a couple brief runs through the motocross track, I was scanned in at the scoring
barrels, unsure whether or not I would do more than 2 laps. It was that hot and I was
that out of shape for the heat. My lack of heat tolerance was mostly a product of 70-
minute commutes to work and few evenings pedaling the mountain bike around the
hot streets of Naperville. Some might say heat is heat, but Chicago’s is tame by St.
Louis standards. I didn't want to stand, even on the motocross track. A series of
wimpy doubles made me look even wimpier as I rolled them, then grabbed a handful
of throttle on a straightaway just to show the crowd of onlookers that I knew how to
make the bike sound fast.
Back inside the woods, the trail was becoming tackier in some spots and more rutted
in others. While none of the ruts appeared to be of the bike-swallowing variety, the
effort of bobbling through them was enough to steal precious energy from my heat-
taxed body. In explaining the mud-rut phenomenon to the non-riding layperson, the
reaction is usually along the lines of “But doesn't the front wheel steer itself through
the ruts?” Yes, Einstein, it does. For about 1.3 seconds. Then it’s a combination of
body contortions, clutch control, and sheer will that takes a person through the rest of
the rut.
Near the end of the second lap, racers were already pulled over, searching for
anything resembling shade. The fast guys were still going fast, seemingly oblivious to
the heat. Jason Raines flew by me in an open field as if it were a cool spring morning.
At this point I was reaching the level of exhaustion where bladder control becomes
secondary. I wanted to pee in the worst way. Resisting the temptation, I soldiered on
for another lap but could wait no more on the fourth lap. I pulled over, turned my back
to the trail and let it all out. I hadn't felt so relieved since Lebanon in 2001.
In full-on spode mode, I finished my fourth lap and limped back to my truck after two
hours in the heat. Could I have done another hour? Probably, but the days of torturing
myself in the name of pride appear to be winding down. I cranked up the air
conditioning, cruised home, took a long shower and went to bed. Old people need
their sleep.
August 7, 2005
Ligonier, Indiana
4th of 8 in Vet A
A funny thing happens when you drive through the countryside around Ligonier,
Indiana. The power lines go past houses without stopping. Highways have wide
shoulders blanketed with long lines of dried-up horse dung. The people dress funny
– and that’s just the Amish folks. Kickin' it Old School has a slightly different meaning
in these parts. There’s the Amish, kickers of Old School long before it was cool.
Following close behind the Amish, very nearly in a literal sense, are old people. They
drive Cadillacs and Buicks at nearly the speeds of horses pulling buggies, visiting
Amish furniture shops, overnighting in Amish bed and breakfasts and dining on
authentic Amish cuisine. It’s big business.
Nestled within this Amish paradise is a nice little piece of wooded ground serving as
host to the 14th round (as I calculated it) of the District 15 hare scramble series. As I
walked part of the trail after signing up for the Vet A class, the course reminded me of
White City, Illinois. The woods were well established with relatively large trees
spaced far enough apart to make for some fun trails. As with much of northern
Indiana, elevation changes were moderate. The junior class was finishing its race
while I inspected the course, and the dirt looked perfect. After battling dust and heat
for most of the summer, these conditions were welcome relief.
We lined up to start in a small sandy field that was a little narrower than it needed to
be for the size of the A-class row. By the time I got myself to the line, the only open
spaces were far to the left or right. I squeezed in on the right side of the first row and
aimed my KX250 for a patch of brush-covered ground that would take me off the sand
for a brief instant. If all went as planned, the extra grip of the grassy dirt would propel
me past the guys struggling for traction in the center of the sand. As it turned out, it
almost worked. Of the 25-or-so guys on the front row, I arrived at the first turn in about
10th place (success, in my book). From there, things didn't pan out as planned. A
couple guys ahead of me, one on a Honda, tangled and went down. I squeezed by
both bikes, using at least one of them as traction but several other guys went past me
in the process. Later I would discover a line of red coloring on the top tube of my right
fork, proving that rubbing is, in fact, racing.
The next two hours were some of the most fun riding of the summer. Hardly any dust,
no mud to speak of, just moderately tight trails in a nice loamy soil. With no idea who
was in my class, I tried to ride aggressively and shake off some arm pump on the first
lap. The Kawasaki screamed up some short, sandy hills, rear wheel bouncing off tree
roots. Once again I was reminded that the 14/50 sprocket combo was probably a bit
tall for these types of trails. In Missouri, with faster trails and the occasional WFO
blast through open fields, I felt it necessary to keep up with the big four-stroke
thumpers with taller gearing on my close-ratio MX-style transmission. It did work, as
evidenced at Newark last year with Todd Corwin and his KTM thumper on my tail
through a quarter-mile stretch of pasture. The KX held him off that day but now the
gearing was keeping the KX250 just outside its preferred screaming range of RPM’s.
One of the more interesting features of the Ligonier course was a pair of dried-up
swamps, each a deep bed of peat that rivaled Morrison’s Moose Run. The first time I
blasted through it, I could have sworn it was wet. It sucked away horsepower like
Paris Hilton and a [edited for family-friendliness]. One pass by the field of racers was
enough to whoop it up and dig out some serious trenches. Had the swamps actually
been wet, I’m not sure the promoters would have run us through them at all. It was
the fastest section of the course but also the most demanding.
The club grounds contained a homebuilt motocross track used sparingly within the
marked course. Though my oft-professed dislike for moto-style jumps is well known
among my regular readers, I actually enjoyed this short section. One of the tabletop
jumps was just moderate enough to be enjoyable. The track doubled as the setup
point for entering the second of the two swamps and shortly after that, re-entry into the
woods. The bikes ahead of me kicked up a moderate dust on the track and a little
inside some parts of the woods, but it was mostly an enjoyable course with plenty of
visibility. I did make a few minor goofs, each of them slide-outs around corners and
one coming just after making a difficult pass in a tight section of woods.
Because of the heat (moderate, in my opinion), the promoters shortened the race to
90 minutes plus one lap. For me, this brought me into the scoring barrels for the final
time at about 5 minutes shy of two hours. After several tough races during a very hot
summer, this day kicked up the fun factor. Ligonier has now made it onto my highly
selective must-do list.
Bloomingdale, Michigan
Ligonier, Indiana
Ligonier, Indiana