| 2006 Race Reports |
August 13, 2006
Geneseo, Illinois
2nd of 8 in +30 A
An odd theme is emerging in the District 17 hare scrambles series: livestock. Two
weeks prior was Wardy's Fox Valley Off-Road, situated behind a Tyson chicken farm.
Today’s race, a WFO event, was on the site of a hog farm. Personally, I’ll take the
hogs over the chickens on the stink-o-meter and chicken over hogs on the tasty-o-
meter. But for racing, all livestock is equal.
The staging area was a Missouri-sized hayfield near the historic Hennepin Canal,
where I chose a parking space approximately 3,000 feet from the signup tent. On the
long walk I paused to chat with Rick Kinkelaar, still chasing points in the D-17 overall
standings. With a new clutch slave unit for his KTM, Rick was back in action and ready
to challenge all comers.
As with previous WFO races, all the A classes lined up on the front row. I was back to
my usual reaction time when the gun fired and sprinted to the first turn in mid-pack.
Will Heitman and Ron Peterson were both ahead of me as we rounded a couple
turns before the woods. Once inside, we blasted through some ATV trails, flew down
the center of a soybean field, hopped over a few logs, and finally came to one of two
creek crossings. The creek was not particularly wide or deep, but the opposing creek
bank had given many riders fits on the practice lap. Most guys hadn't been aware of a
metal bridge across the creek, a few feet down the trail and out of sight where the
bottleneck had been. Made out of a ramp for loading pigs into trucks, if ridden
carefully the bridge could take away much of the effort of spinning and cursing one’s
way up the opposite bank. Now, everyone took the easy way across.
After the bridge was a series of singletrack trails and high speed fields, then back to
the area around the hog farm. One minor crash put me another 20 or so seconds
behind Will and Ron, who had distanced themselves in the chaos that is the
beginning of every hare scramble. My next opportunity for stupidity came on the
second lap. At the metal bridge over the creek, my front tire slid off the side. Dumb
luck kept the bike on the bridge, only because my left fork tube was resting on the
edge. A quick jerk of the handlebars got the tire back on the bridge and me back on
track.
Near the end of the second lap I finally caught up to Ron and Will, who were checking
into the scoring barrels. Just like Fox Valley, we raced in formation until I cut off a
corner and passed Ron. Leading up to the metal bridge, course workers inexplicably
pointed Will straight into the creek, and he obliged. Why? I had no idea but gambled
that I could make it across using the bridge, and indeed I did, edging out Will and
taking over the lead in our class. From there, Will rode my back tire until we reached a
bottleneck at a tricky series of logs. While waiting our turns, Will passed the time by
nudging my back tire, again and again. It didn't help – we were at the mercy of course
workers lifting bikes over logs.
When my turn came up, I hopped over the three logs without any assistance.
Apparently Will wasn't as successful. After the log bottleneck, I couldn't hear his
Yamaha thumper behind me. I hammered through the wide open sections and
picked my way through the tight trees, hoping to keep out of sight from Will. But luck
intervened, the bad kind, at a whooped-out sand section. A lapped rider ahead of me
was looking a bit dangerous while climbing a small hill, rear wheel swapping back
and forth. I moved to the left to pass, then he drifted left. My front tire ground against
his rear tire once, twice, and a third time before I lost my balance and fell in the sand.
If he hadn't slowed, all would have been fine, but luck has a funny way of changing
things. Will and Ron both passed me.
Eventually I caught up to Ron but never could get within 30 seconds of Will. From that
point on, we were running absolutely identical lap times. Three times in a row, I could
see him in the exact same spot ahead of me on the other side of a gully, and I do
mean the exact same spot. Try as I might, I wasn't gaining any ground and was not
helped by a lapper who went out of his way to let by a guy ahead of me, but refused to
take all of 1.5 seconds to let me by. Will probably gained another 15 seconds in the
minutes I begged and pleaded with the guy to let me pass.
The laps clicked by quickly, and a glance at my watch showed I was on my final lap.
Once again, I could see Will the same distance ahead of me and settled in for a 2nd
place finish. On the back side of the hog barns, in a wide open section next to a small
motocross course, I climbed a sandy, whooped-out hill and was shocked to see a
downed rider directly in my path. I had just downshifted from 4th to 3rd gear, plenty
fast enough for severe pain in a collision. The impact was harsh, but somehow I
jumped away in time to keep from crunching bones against the guy’s KDX. He
apologized, over and over, and I shrugged it off. No harm was done to either of us, so
I hopped back on my bike and finished just behind +40A winner Joe French.
Back at my truck, it became apparent that my pipe had taken most of the impact of my
last-lap collision. The pipe was toast, but the day was otherwise a good one. Dan
Burgard took the overall win, lapping me in the process, as he did in winning at
Hooppole in June.
August 27, 2006
Wedron, Illinois
2nd of 7 in +30A
Racing a new motorcycle in its inaugural season is a joy for many reasons, none
less pleasurable than the limited amount of prep time needed to ready the bike for
competition. Other than the routine air filter cleanings and oil changes and chain
adjustments, for most part it’s gas-n-go. Unless, that is, you borrow various parts
from an older motorcycle and slap them on your new bike. Such has been the case
with my ’04 KX250, which completed its 9th race two weeks prior at Geneseo. Most of
its components were still tight and within tolerances, except for those swapped from
the ’03 KX250, now retired and looking for a new home. Both wheels were taken from
the ’03 bike, along with the handlebars, triple clamps, handguards, silencer, large
capacity gas tank, Hebo clutch…the list goes on. While everything native to the ’04
bike was working just fine, the swapped components gave the bike the flavor of a well-
used (read: abused) motorcycle. And as slow as I am at bike maintenance, Saturday
mornings before races are still reserved for my home away from home, the 10x20
storage unit in the Chicago suburbs where my toys and tools live.
Such was the case for my second trip to Wardy's Fox Valley Off Road hare scramble.
The pipe I’d smashed in a collision at Geneseo had been replaced by a new FMF
Fatty in the ultra-wannabe-MX “factory” style. Those folks at FMF are smart. They pull a
bunch of pipes off the assembly line prior to the nickel plating process and tack weld
an oval, stamped metal piece that reads "FMF”. The unfinished look is reminiscent of
pipes on factory motocrossers back in the day when the upper echelon of
professional racers preferred two strokes to four; thus the name “Factory” for this line
of pipes. With this, FMF can sell aspiring motocross racers a pipe that would seem to
be made with less effort than the ultra-shiny (and much prettier) nickel-plated version,
for about $20 more than the regular Fatty. Motocross racers will gladly pay this
premium because they are morons. Actually, I am being overly harsh and I do
apologize. Motocrossers are often very helpful in my quest for cheap, as their
preference for whatever RC and Bubba are doing this month has led to a fire sale of
all things 2-stroke, including FMF’s Factory Fatty pipe which I picked up new on eBay
last year for $71 delivered to my door.
As for the racing, this time at Fox Valley the temperature was 20 degrees cooler and
the dirt was wet from rains during the week. The rocky creek was again part of the
course, run basically in reverse of the July race. My start was average as usual and I
managed to fall over just past the first turn, then waited patiently while #640 Tim
Perkins stalled his Husky at the bottom of every hill. The downhills were a bit tricky,
some with 90-degree turns at the bottoms. On later laps, just about all the red and
yellow tape around the sharp corners would be torn off as riders slid past the
boundaries.
My fancy new FMF pipe brought some extra life to the KX’s engine while I tried to keep
up with #401 Will Heitman and #416 Bruce Richard on the first lap. Just behind me
was #408 Jeff Snedecor, who passed me on the second lap. He was out of sight in
no time until a fall in the creek later in the race. And speaking of the creek, I must say I
rode that thing like Tuff Hedeman on Bodacious at Long Beach in ’93. The proverbial
8 seconds, I owned it, every rock, tree root and muddy rut. I made more passes than
Bill Clinton at an unwed mother’s convention. The creek was mine.
An hour into the race I finally caught up to Will, and due to Jeff Snedecor’s fall in the
creek, briefly took over the lead in our class. But Jeff caught up quickly, passed me
like I was standing still and I never saw him for the rest of the race. In the final lap and
a half, Jeff put a 35-second gap on me. The whole time, however, I thought I was no
better than 3rd place, based on the scoring display. As it turned out, the scoring
display was wrong. Jeff took the win, with me in 2nd and Will in 3rd. Rick Kinkelaar
bounced back from bike problems the previous two races and won the AA class,
while Trey Verado in the Little A class took the overall win.
Geneseo, Illinois
2nd of 8 in +30 A
An odd theme is emerging in the District 17 hare scrambles series: livestock. Two
weeks prior was Wardy's Fox Valley Off-Road, situated behind a Tyson chicken farm.
Today’s race, a WFO event, was on the site of a hog farm. Personally, I’ll take the
hogs over the chickens on the stink-o-meter and chicken over hogs on the tasty-o-
meter. But for racing, all livestock is equal.
The staging area was a Missouri-sized hayfield near the historic Hennepin Canal,
where I chose a parking space approximately 3,000 feet from the signup tent. On the
long walk I paused to chat with Rick Kinkelaar, still chasing points in the D-17 overall
standings. With a new clutch slave unit for his KTM, Rick was back in action and ready
to challenge all comers.
As with previous WFO races, all the A classes lined up on the front row. I was back to
my usual reaction time when the gun fired and sprinted to the first turn in mid-pack.
Will Heitman and Ron Peterson were both ahead of me as we rounded a couple
turns before the woods. Once inside, we blasted through some ATV trails, flew down
the center of a soybean field, hopped over a few logs, and finally came to one of two
creek crossings. The creek was not particularly wide or deep, but the opposing creek
bank had given many riders fits on the practice lap. Most guys hadn't been aware of a
metal bridge across the creek, a few feet down the trail and out of sight where the
bottleneck had been. Made out of a ramp for loading pigs into trucks, if ridden
carefully the bridge could take away much of the effort of spinning and cursing one’s
way up the opposite bank. Now, everyone took the easy way across.
After the bridge was a series of singletrack trails and high speed fields, then back to
the area around the hog farm. One minor crash put me another 20 or so seconds
behind Will and Ron, who had distanced themselves in the chaos that is the
beginning of every hare scramble. My next opportunity for stupidity came on the
second lap. At the metal bridge over the creek, my front tire slid off the side. Dumb
luck kept the bike on the bridge, only because my left fork tube was resting on the
edge. A quick jerk of the handlebars got the tire back on the bridge and me back on
track.
Near the end of the second lap I finally caught up to Ron and Will, who were checking
into the scoring barrels. Just like Fox Valley, we raced in formation until I cut off a
corner and passed Ron. Leading up to the metal bridge, course workers inexplicably
pointed Will straight into the creek, and he obliged. Why? I had no idea but gambled
that I could make it across using the bridge, and indeed I did, edging out Will and
taking over the lead in our class. From there, Will rode my back tire until we reached a
bottleneck at a tricky series of logs. While waiting our turns, Will passed the time by
nudging my back tire, again and again. It didn't help – we were at the mercy of course
workers lifting bikes over logs.
When my turn came up, I hopped over the three logs without any assistance.
Apparently Will wasn't as successful. After the log bottleneck, I couldn't hear his
Yamaha thumper behind me. I hammered through the wide open sections and
picked my way through the tight trees, hoping to keep out of sight from Will. But luck
intervened, the bad kind, at a whooped-out sand section. A lapped rider ahead of me
was looking a bit dangerous while climbing a small hill, rear wheel swapping back
and forth. I moved to the left to pass, then he drifted left. My front tire ground against
his rear tire once, twice, and a third time before I lost my balance and fell in the sand.
If he hadn't slowed, all would have been fine, but luck has a funny way of changing
things. Will and Ron both passed me.
Eventually I caught up to Ron but never could get within 30 seconds of Will. From that
point on, we were running absolutely identical lap times. Three times in a row, I could
see him in the exact same spot ahead of me on the other side of a gully, and I do
mean the exact same spot. Try as I might, I wasn't gaining any ground and was not
helped by a lapper who went out of his way to let by a guy ahead of me, but refused to
take all of 1.5 seconds to let me by. Will probably gained another 15 seconds in the
minutes I begged and pleaded with the guy to let me pass.
The laps clicked by quickly, and a glance at my watch showed I was on my final lap.
Once again, I could see Will the same distance ahead of me and settled in for a 2nd
place finish. On the back side of the hog barns, in a wide open section next to a small
motocross course, I climbed a sandy, whooped-out hill and was shocked to see a
downed rider directly in my path. I had just downshifted from 4th to 3rd gear, plenty
fast enough for severe pain in a collision. The impact was harsh, but somehow I
jumped away in time to keep from crunching bones against the guy’s KDX. He
apologized, over and over, and I shrugged it off. No harm was done to either of us, so
I hopped back on my bike and finished just behind +40A winner Joe French.
Back at my truck, it became apparent that my pipe had taken most of the impact of my
last-lap collision. The pipe was toast, but the day was otherwise a good one. Dan
Burgard took the overall win, lapping me in the process, as he did in winning at
Hooppole in June.
August 27, 2006
Wedron, Illinois
2nd of 7 in +30A
Racing a new motorcycle in its inaugural season is a joy for many reasons, none
less pleasurable than the limited amount of prep time needed to ready the bike for
competition. Other than the routine air filter cleanings and oil changes and chain
adjustments, for most part it’s gas-n-go. Unless, that is, you borrow various parts
from an older motorcycle and slap them on your new bike. Such has been the case
with my ’04 KX250, which completed its 9th race two weeks prior at Geneseo. Most of
its components were still tight and within tolerances, except for those swapped from
the ’03 KX250, now retired and looking for a new home. Both wheels were taken from
the ’03 bike, along with the handlebars, triple clamps, handguards, silencer, large
capacity gas tank, Hebo clutch…the list goes on. While everything native to the ’04
bike was working just fine, the swapped components gave the bike the flavor of a well-
used (read: abused) motorcycle. And as slow as I am at bike maintenance, Saturday
mornings before races are still reserved for my home away from home, the 10x20
storage unit in the Chicago suburbs where my toys and tools live.
Such was the case for my second trip to Wardy's Fox Valley Off Road hare scramble.
The pipe I’d smashed in a collision at Geneseo had been replaced by a new FMF
Fatty in the ultra-wannabe-MX “factory” style. Those folks at FMF are smart. They pull a
bunch of pipes off the assembly line prior to the nickel plating process and tack weld
an oval, stamped metal piece that reads "FMF”. The unfinished look is reminiscent of
pipes on factory motocrossers back in the day when the upper echelon of
professional racers preferred two strokes to four; thus the name “Factory” for this line
of pipes. With this, FMF can sell aspiring motocross racers a pipe that would seem to
be made with less effort than the ultra-shiny (and much prettier) nickel-plated version,
for about $20 more than the regular Fatty. Motocross racers will gladly pay this
premium because they are morons. Actually, I am being overly harsh and I do
apologize. Motocrossers are often very helpful in my quest for cheap, as their
preference for whatever RC and Bubba are doing this month has led to a fire sale of
all things 2-stroke, including FMF’s Factory Fatty pipe which I picked up new on eBay
last year for $71 delivered to my door.
As for the racing, this time at Fox Valley the temperature was 20 degrees cooler and
the dirt was wet from rains during the week. The rocky creek was again part of the
course, run basically in reverse of the July race. My start was average as usual and I
managed to fall over just past the first turn, then waited patiently while #640 Tim
Perkins stalled his Husky at the bottom of every hill. The downhills were a bit tricky,
some with 90-degree turns at the bottoms. On later laps, just about all the red and
yellow tape around the sharp corners would be torn off as riders slid past the
boundaries.
My fancy new FMF pipe brought some extra life to the KX’s engine while I tried to keep
up with #401 Will Heitman and #416 Bruce Richard on the first lap. Just behind me
was #408 Jeff Snedecor, who passed me on the second lap. He was out of sight in
no time until a fall in the creek later in the race. And speaking of the creek, I must say I
rode that thing like Tuff Hedeman on Bodacious at Long Beach in ’93. The proverbial
8 seconds, I owned it, every rock, tree root and muddy rut. I made more passes than
Bill Clinton at an unwed mother’s convention. The creek was mine.
An hour into the race I finally caught up to Will, and due to Jeff Snedecor’s fall in the
creek, briefly took over the lead in our class. But Jeff caught up quickly, passed me
like I was standing still and I never saw him for the rest of the race. In the final lap and
a half, Jeff put a 35-second gap on me. The whole time, however, I thought I was no
better than 3rd place, based on the scoring display. As it turned out, the scoring
display was wrong. Jeff took the win, with me in 2nd and Will in 3rd. Rick Kinkelaar
bounced back from bike problems the previous two races and won the AA class,
while Trey Verado in the Little A class took the overall win.
Geneseo, Illinois
Wedron, Illinois
Wedron, Illinois
| An all-too-familiar position at the start of a race |
 |  |  |