| 2007 Race Reports |
July 29, 2007
Newark, Missouri
5th of 8 in A Sportsman
In the woods outside Newark, site of Round #12 of the Missouri Hare Scrambles
Championship, one crack of the throttle on my KX250 was all it took to remind me that
the air is much thicker in Missouri than it is in Colorado. I’d spent the prior week with
my tired KTM 300MXC in the mountains of Taylor Park trying to coax every last bit of
power out of the engine and handling out of the chassis. Now back on the KX250, the
difference was like driving a rally car after spending a week in a 1987 Ford F-150
pickup truck. During the morning practice lap, the KX nearly ripped off my arms the
first time I dumped the clutch to climb a hill. It turned so quickly I almost ran into a
tree, and lofted its front end so effortlessly that I had to work to keep from looping out.
Thus began my first MHSC race in over a year, at a venue renowned for its flowing
woods, challenging hills and absence of rocks. A 4:30 a.m. wakeup call was a small
price to pay for a chance to ride one of the best hare scrambles courses in Missouri. I
pulled into the staging area around 10:00 and immediately broke my #1 rule of
searching for a parking spot in the pasture: stay on the beaten path. Some of my
regular readers may recall my previous experience here in 2004, when I left the place
with punctures in three of the four tires on my Sonoma. As luck would have it, I
avoided sharp objects and hooked up with #791 Matt Sellers for the practice lap. Gary
Mittelberg & Company had assembled an 11-mile loop, almost all of which was
singletrack. The familiar hills east of the staging area were every bit as steep as I’d
remembered. Gary mentioned before the race that he’d taken care in laying out as
many as three lines up each hill to avoid bottlenecks, but as perfect as conditions
were on this day, the main lines were going to get a lot of use.
In 2007 the MHSC adopted a new starting procedure where riders straddle the front
fender with hands placed on the handlebars. When the 15-second board drops, each
rider scrambles around the front of his bike, hops on the seat and either a) throws
down the kickstarter, hoping the engine fires on the first try; or b) is already moving
forward because all he had to do was push a button to start the engine. If you are an
electric-start person, there is no challenge to this. If your preference is for 2-strokes,
many unfortunate actions can result from this procedure, the most common being
accidental contact with the kickstarter that causes it to return to its folded-in position
before you’re ready to kick it. Another possible result is that your engine has a finicky
tendency to avoid starting on the first kick when it’s in gear and you've not held in the
clutch lever from the time you killed the engine (while in gear) until the time you threw
down the kickstarter. The latter result was mine, and for the first time in a long time, I
was dead last at the first corner. The 4-strokes fared much better. Just prior to our A
Sportsman class start, I witnessed something I've never seen in 13 years of
competing in dead-engine-start hare scrambles: the first two rows of riders leaving
the starting line were led by thumpers.
The pace of the A Sportsman class through the first lap reminded me why the MHSC
is so competitive: these guys don’t mess around. I traded spots with #447 Kevin O’
Brien and #554 Troy LaVelle before they both pulled away at around the midpoint of
the initial lap. The free-flowing woods offered plenty of passing opportunities, but after
Kevin and Troy left me, there was little passing to be done. My next closest competitor,
#324 Brian Blauvelt, put two minutes between us on the first lap and would hold on to
that gap for most of the race. Until I caught up to lappers on the third lap, the only guys
I saw were #17 Todd Corwin having a bad day, #8 Zach Bryant having an even worse
day, and the rear tire of #36 Kevin Borts every once in awhile until he’d find a section
he liked very well and disappear out of sight.
The Mittelberg crew put some thought into the course by mixing up the tightest trails
with faster, open sections where we could breathe a bit. The narrowest trails were
reserved for the lowlands below the steepest hills on the property, where a short
section of trail was hacked through dense willow trees and giant ragweed made me
feel like I was back home riding my old loop in the Keen Farm woods. Pie plates
stapled to trees alerted us of the most special places on the course, like Alligator Hill
(make the turn at the bottom or else fall into a lake...with alligators?), Slip’n’Slide, and
“Phew! Who Farted?”, an extra special place where at least one large animal had met
its maker.
On the third lap I finally got around Kevin Borts when he had to take a second try at the
steepest hill on the course. The closest I would get to any of the guys in my class was
about half a mile from the end, when Brian Blauvelt had some problems on the fourth
lap. I rode his rear tire to the end, but without any good passing opportunities, he
finished a couple seconds ahead of me in 4th place. I held the 5th spot throughout
the entire race, finished 18th overall, and couldn't have been happier. No real
mistakes, no twisted knees (the bane of my racing existence in 2007), not much
fatigue and pretty much a perpetual smile for two hours and 21 minutes.
August 12, 2007
Roselawn, Indiana
5th of 10 in Vet A
A few years ago on a warm August day, I came across Missouri fast guy Lars Valin in
the woods of St. Joe State Park, testing a brand new CR250 for the International Six
Days Enduro. He handed over his new bike for me to test ride, to which I naturally
offered my KTM 300MXC in exchange. His response? “That KTM will screw me up. I’ll
stick with my Honda”. I thought Lars was just being courteous, not wanting to give my
bike a pro-class whipping it wasn’t set up to handle. Looking back on it now, after four
years of dual Japanese/European motorcycle ownership, I know what he was really
thinking. On a similarly warm August day in 2007, my frequent alternations between
the KTM and KX were screwing me up.
Case in point: after racing the Newark round of the Missouri Hare Scrambles
Championship on my KX250, I'd switched back to the KTM for the Summer Bummer
enduro at Roselawn. Prior to Newark I’d ridden 5 days in Colorado on the KTM;
preceding that was the Marietta, Illinois hare scramble on the KX. When I took a few
warm-up sprints along the east end of the former airstrip that is now the Summer
Bummer staging area, the KTM’s shifter seemed to be positioned abnormally high.
The shifter bolt was a bit loose, so I assumed it had slipped up into the next higher
notch on the shift shaft tines. A quick adjustment got the shifter’s position to a similar
level as the KX’s. I was good to go, or so I thought. Thirty minutes later I would
discover why the KTM's shifter was positioned higher than the KX’s. And it would cost
me some time.
For the first time in eons, I’d arrived to an enduro with plenty of time to spare. The
signup line was short, my 9th row position was a solid place to be, and both of my
LCD clocks appeared to be functioning well. Earlier in the week my lifelong war with
ragweed pollen scored a win for the allergens, so I made use of a day off work by
giving the KTM a little TLC in advance of the enduro. It was needed. Colorado had
sheared off the rear brake pedal step pad, induced a fork seal leak and destroyed a
rear tire. Now race worthy again, the KTM was ready to begin a 90-mile journey of tight
woods and country roads.
At 10:09 a.m., temperatures were already headed for the low-90’s and I was glad to
start moving. To begin the enduro, the Hill & Gully Riders set up a mini-EnduroCross
course on the west end of the staging area, with a few logs set up around what
appeared to be a mud drag pit. While an early morning shower had settled the dust,
the mud pit was mostly the same sugar sand prevalent in this part of Northwestern
Indiana. Following the logs and sand pit was the narrow woods for which Roselawn
is famous, beginning with a mile or so of trails squeezed between the staging area
and Highway 10.
From there we moved northward on a country road to the next set of woods, where I
quickly discovered my rear brake was doing very little braking – none, actually. Each
push on the brake pedal…nothing. I pulled off the trail to investigate and found at
some point I’d run over a yellow “Caution” ribbon that was now wrapped around the
rear hub. The ribbon had worked its way into the brake pads, where in its melted state
was acting as a very effective lubricating agent.
I pulled out what ribbon I could, continued down the trail and hoped the plastic would
burn off soon. My single source of stopping power was now only a damningly spongy
front brake that is more like half a front brake. It would, at times, bring my progress to
a relatively quick halt, but only when the brake lever was about a ¼-inch from the
handlebar. I continued down the trail at a beginner’s pace for the next 15 minutes
until, suddenly, the rear brake began functioning again. All told, I’d lost about 10
minutes.
Another 15 minutes of woods and country roads passed by without incident, and then
the bike wouldn't downshift. I was having flashbacks to Knob Noster, Missouri in
2003, when the shift drum bolt backed out, and hoped it wasn't a similar fate. Again, I
pulled off the trail to inspect and saw that the shifter was rubbing against the skid
plate “wing” that protects the stator. Now I knew why the KTM’s shift lever had been
set higher than the KX250’s. You would think the guy who set it that way to begin with
(read: me) could remember why. Then again, this is the same guy who, in his
previous Summer Bummer, left a rag in the airbox. Off came the fanny pack, out came
the tools, and 10 minutes later I was ready to ride again.
The course designers did their best to keep the trails tight and rhythm-less for riders.
It seemed there was no rhyme or reason for the various twists and turns, which
prevented me from riding in any form resembling smooth. Even the sporadic logs
played a part. In one of the longer woods sections, just as I began self-
congratulations for crossing a tricky log across the trail, I looked ahead just in time to
see an overhead log nearly remove my helmet. We would ride this section again after
the mid-race gas stop and that same log tandem would again nearly take off my head.
I arrived back at the staging area just before noon, gassed the bike, ate a turkey
sandwich and headed back out to Highway 55. The second loop repeated a portion of
the first and took us to the same abandoned house we’d ridden through at the last
two spring enduros. This time, ribbons directed us around the house - no indoor
riding this time. We then headed into the same woods section that only the A classes
had to ride at the earlier Sand Booger enduro. The trail avoided much of the extremely
tight woods behind the house, but later in the race the A classes would get their extra
challenge.
My own challenge came about halfway through the second loop while following 200A
rider Terry Wilton. In a tight section literally carved out of scrub brush, I couldn't turn
the bike in time to miss a tree. Even though it was a pretty slow head-on collision, my
headlight popped out of its shell. The 10-minutes spent fixing it left me playing catch-
up for about the next full hour, despite a handful of short resets. Only when we hit the
open road on the return trip to the staging area was I able to ride fast enough to catch
up. Terry Wilton, the only other A-rider on my row, was already there, ready to ride the
last 10 miles through the Sun Aura nudist club woods. This section had been
reserved specially for the A classes, now in our fourth hour of riding. Temperatures
had reached into the 90’s and I was a bit tired – ending the race at this point would
have been just about right, but the extra challenge was directly in front of us and we
took off into the nudie woods. Terry led the first couple of miles, but his pace was
slower here than in the early stages of the race. I was on his rear wheel and
eventually he let me pass. Thirty seconds later I stalled the bike and he retook the
lead.
On such a warm day, it was only naturally that some nudie club members would be
on hand to cheer us on. As much as I thought I would be prepared, I wasn't. It’s
always a shock. The good thing about riding fast through the woods is that the 30 or
so naked people hanging out in a group along the trail were only a 2-second snippet
of private parts. That particular spot was the only place I’d see any of them.
Terry let me by in a set of sand whoops and I pulled away, riding mostly alone in the
very tight trails surrounding the staging area. My average speed through here could
only have been 10 mph at best. Heat and exhaustion were now in full force, and I was
relieved to see spectators in the woods wearing clothes. The end was near.
I finished well out of range of the top 4 finishers in the Vet A class, due to losing about
30 minutes fixing things on the side of the trail. Most of the A-riders contenting for
trophies turned in scores in the lower 40’s, which was where I might have been
without my serious of unfortunate incidents. I looked at it as some of the best fun I
could ever have for $35 and no permanent damage to me or the bike. A day well
spent.
Newark, Missouri
5th of 8 in A Sportsman
In the woods outside Newark, site of Round #12 of the Missouri Hare Scrambles
Championship, one crack of the throttle on my KX250 was all it took to remind me that
the air is much thicker in Missouri than it is in Colorado. I’d spent the prior week with
my tired KTM 300MXC in the mountains of Taylor Park trying to coax every last bit of
power out of the engine and handling out of the chassis. Now back on the KX250, the
difference was like driving a rally car after spending a week in a 1987 Ford F-150
pickup truck. During the morning practice lap, the KX nearly ripped off my arms the
first time I dumped the clutch to climb a hill. It turned so quickly I almost ran into a
tree, and lofted its front end so effortlessly that I had to work to keep from looping out.
Thus began my first MHSC race in over a year, at a venue renowned for its flowing
woods, challenging hills and absence of rocks. A 4:30 a.m. wakeup call was a small
price to pay for a chance to ride one of the best hare scrambles courses in Missouri. I
pulled into the staging area around 10:00 and immediately broke my #1 rule of
searching for a parking spot in the pasture: stay on the beaten path. Some of my
regular readers may recall my previous experience here in 2004, when I left the place
with punctures in three of the four tires on my Sonoma. As luck would have it, I
avoided sharp objects and hooked up with #791 Matt Sellers for the practice lap. Gary
Mittelberg & Company had assembled an 11-mile loop, almost all of which was
singletrack. The familiar hills east of the staging area were every bit as steep as I’d
remembered. Gary mentioned before the race that he’d taken care in laying out as
many as three lines up each hill to avoid bottlenecks, but as perfect as conditions
were on this day, the main lines were going to get a lot of use.
In 2007 the MHSC adopted a new starting procedure where riders straddle the front
fender with hands placed on the handlebars. When the 15-second board drops, each
rider scrambles around the front of his bike, hops on the seat and either a) throws
down the kickstarter, hoping the engine fires on the first try; or b) is already moving
forward because all he had to do was push a button to start the engine. If you are an
electric-start person, there is no challenge to this. If your preference is for 2-strokes,
many unfortunate actions can result from this procedure, the most common being
accidental contact with the kickstarter that causes it to return to its folded-in position
before you’re ready to kick it. Another possible result is that your engine has a finicky
tendency to avoid starting on the first kick when it’s in gear and you've not held in the
clutch lever from the time you killed the engine (while in gear) until the time you threw
down the kickstarter. The latter result was mine, and for the first time in a long time, I
was dead last at the first corner. The 4-strokes fared much better. Just prior to our A
Sportsman class start, I witnessed something I've never seen in 13 years of
competing in dead-engine-start hare scrambles: the first two rows of riders leaving
the starting line were led by thumpers.
The pace of the A Sportsman class through the first lap reminded me why the MHSC
is so competitive: these guys don’t mess around. I traded spots with #447 Kevin O’
Brien and #554 Troy LaVelle before they both pulled away at around the midpoint of
the initial lap. The free-flowing woods offered plenty of passing opportunities, but after
Kevin and Troy left me, there was little passing to be done. My next closest competitor,
#324 Brian Blauvelt, put two minutes between us on the first lap and would hold on to
that gap for most of the race. Until I caught up to lappers on the third lap, the only guys
I saw were #17 Todd Corwin having a bad day, #8 Zach Bryant having an even worse
day, and the rear tire of #36 Kevin Borts every once in awhile until he’d find a section
he liked very well and disappear out of sight.
The Mittelberg crew put some thought into the course by mixing up the tightest trails
with faster, open sections where we could breathe a bit. The narrowest trails were
reserved for the lowlands below the steepest hills on the property, where a short
section of trail was hacked through dense willow trees and giant ragweed made me
feel like I was back home riding my old loop in the Keen Farm woods. Pie plates
stapled to trees alerted us of the most special places on the course, like Alligator Hill
(make the turn at the bottom or else fall into a lake...with alligators?), Slip’n’Slide, and
“Phew! Who Farted?”, an extra special place where at least one large animal had met
its maker.
On the third lap I finally got around Kevin Borts when he had to take a second try at the
steepest hill on the course. The closest I would get to any of the guys in my class was
about half a mile from the end, when Brian Blauvelt had some problems on the fourth
lap. I rode his rear tire to the end, but without any good passing opportunities, he
finished a couple seconds ahead of me in 4th place. I held the 5th spot throughout
the entire race, finished 18th overall, and couldn't have been happier. No real
mistakes, no twisted knees (the bane of my racing existence in 2007), not much
fatigue and pretty much a perpetual smile for two hours and 21 minutes.
August 12, 2007
Roselawn, Indiana
5th of 10 in Vet A
A few years ago on a warm August day, I came across Missouri fast guy Lars Valin in
the woods of St. Joe State Park, testing a brand new CR250 for the International Six
Days Enduro. He handed over his new bike for me to test ride, to which I naturally
offered my KTM 300MXC in exchange. His response? “That KTM will screw me up. I’ll
stick with my Honda”. I thought Lars was just being courteous, not wanting to give my
bike a pro-class whipping it wasn’t set up to handle. Looking back on it now, after four
years of dual Japanese/European motorcycle ownership, I know what he was really
thinking. On a similarly warm August day in 2007, my frequent alternations between
the KTM and KX were screwing me up.
Case in point: after racing the Newark round of the Missouri Hare Scrambles
Championship on my KX250, I'd switched back to the KTM for the Summer Bummer
enduro at Roselawn. Prior to Newark I’d ridden 5 days in Colorado on the KTM;
preceding that was the Marietta, Illinois hare scramble on the KX. When I took a few
warm-up sprints along the east end of the former airstrip that is now the Summer
Bummer staging area, the KTM’s shifter seemed to be positioned abnormally high.
The shifter bolt was a bit loose, so I assumed it had slipped up into the next higher
notch on the shift shaft tines. A quick adjustment got the shifter’s position to a similar
level as the KX’s. I was good to go, or so I thought. Thirty minutes later I would
discover why the KTM's shifter was positioned higher than the KX’s. And it would cost
me some time.
For the first time in eons, I’d arrived to an enduro with plenty of time to spare. The
signup line was short, my 9th row position was a solid place to be, and both of my
LCD clocks appeared to be functioning well. Earlier in the week my lifelong war with
ragweed pollen scored a win for the allergens, so I made use of a day off work by
giving the KTM a little TLC in advance of the enduro. It was needed. Colorado had
sheared off the rear brake pedal step pad, induced a fork seal leak and destroyed a
rear tire. Now race worthy again, the KTM was ready to begin a 90-mile journey of tight
woods and country roads.
At 10:09 a.m., temperatures were already headed for the low-90’s and I was glad to
start moving. To begin the enduro, the Hill & Gully Riders set up a mini-EnduroCross
course on the west end of the staging area, with a few logs set up around what
appeared to be a mud drag pit. While an early morning shower had settled the dust,
the mud pit was mostly the same sugar sand prevalent in this part of Northwestern
Indiana. Following the logs and sand pit was the narrow woods for which Roselawn
is famous, beginning with a mile or so of trails squeezed between the staging area
and Highway 10.
From there we moved northward on a country road to the next set of woods, where I
quickly discovered my rear brake was doing very little braking – none, actually. Each
push on the brake pedal…nothing. I pulled off the trail to investigate and found at
some point I’d run over a yellow “Caution” ribbon that was now wrapped around the
rear hub. The ribbon had worked its way into the brake pads, where in its melted state
was acting as a very effective lubricating agent.
I pulled out what ribbon I could, continued down the trail and hoped the plastic would
burn off soon. My single source of stopping power was now only a damningly spongy
front brake that is more like half a front brake. It would, at times, bring my progress to
a relatively quick halt, but only when the brake lever was about a ¼-inch from the
handlebar. I continued down the trail at a beginner’s pace for the next 15 minutes
until, suddenly, the rear brake began functioning again. All told, I’d lost about 10
minutes.
Another 15 minutes of woods and country roads passed by without incident, and then
the bike wouldn't downshift. I was having flashbacks to Knob Noster, Missouri in
2003, when the shift drum bolt backed out, and hoped it wasn't a similar fate. Again, I
pulled off the trail to inspect and saw that the shifter was rubbing against the skid
plate “wing” that protects the stator. Now I knew why the KTM’s shift lever had been
set higher than the KX250’s. You would think the guy who set it that way to begin with
(read: me) could remember why. Then again, this is the same guy who, in his
previous Summer Bummer, left a rag in the airbox. Off came the fanny pack, out came
the tools, and 10 minutes later I was ready to ride again.
The course designers did their best to keep the trails tight and rhythm-less for riders.
It seemed there was no rhyme or reason for the various twists and turns, which
prevented me from riding in any form resembling smooth. Even the sporadic logs
played a part. In one of the longer woods sections, just as I began self-
congratulations for crossing a tricky log across the trail, I looked ahead just in time to
see an overhead log nearly remove my helmet. We would ride this section again after
the mid-race gas stop and that same log tandem would again nearly take off my head.
I arrived back at the staging area just before noon, gassed the bike, ate a turkey
sandwich and headed back out to Highway 55. The second loop repeated a portion of
the first and took us to the same abandoned house we’d ridden through at the last
two spring enduros. This time, ribbons directed us around the house - no indoor
riding this time. We then headed into the same woods section that only the A classes
had to ride at the earlier Sand Booger enduro. The trail avoided much of the extremely
tight woods behind the house, but later in the race the A classes would get their extra
challenge.
My own challenge came about halfway through the second loop while following 200A
rider Terry Wilton. In a tight section literally carved out of scrub brush, I couldn't turn
the bike in time to miss a tree. Even though it was a pretty slow head-on collision, my
headlight popped out of its shell. The 10-minutes spent fixing it left me playing catch-
up for about the next full hour, despite a handful of short resets. Only when we hit the
open road on the return trip to the staging area was I able to ride fast enough to catch
up. Terry Wilton, the only other A-rider on my row, was already there, ready to ride the
last 10 miles through the Sun Aura nudist club woods. This section had been
reserved specially for the A classes, now in our fourth hour of riding. Temperatures
had reached into the 90’s and I was a bit tired – ending the race at this point would
have been just about right, but the extra challenge was directly in front of us and we
took off into the nudie woods. Terry led the first couple of miles, but his pace was
slower here than in the early stages of the race. I was on his rear wheel and
eventually he let me pass. Thirty seconds later I stalled the bike and he retook the
lead.
On such a warm day, it was only naturally that some nudie club members would be
on hand to cheer us on. As much as I thought I would be prepared, I wasn't. It’s
always a shock. The good thing about riding fast through the woods is that the 30 or
so naked people hanging out in a group along the trail were only a 2-second snippet
of private parts. That particular spot was the only place I’d see any of them.
Terry let me by in a set of sand whoops and I pulled away, riding mostly alone in the
very tight trails surrounding the staging area. My average speed through here could
only have been 10 mph at best. Heat and exhaustion were now in full force, and I was
relieved to see spectators in the woods wearing clothes. The end was near.
I finished well out of range of the top 4 finishers in the Vet A class, due to losing about
30 minutes fixing things on the side of the trail. Most of the A-riders contenting for
trophies turned in scores in the lower 40’s, which was where I might have been
without my serious of unfortunate incidents. I looked at it as some of the best fun I
could ever have for $35 and no permanent damage to me or the bike. A day well
spent.
Newark, Missouri
Roselawn, Indiana
Roselawn, Indiana
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