| 2008 Race Reports |
March 16, 2008
Belleville, Illinois
2nd of 4 in +30A
Now that I’m 3 winters into my Chicago adventure, one thing is certain: until I develop
an affinity for sub-freezing riding conditions, every Monday after the first race of the
season I will feel like a guy who just received his first prostate exam. Clever me,
thinking a bicycle trainer would raise my preseason fitness to an in-season level. The
Belleville Enduro Team’s hare scramble proved there’s no substitute for a good
flogging on tight, twisty trails.
My last trip here in 2005 bought an end to full-time riding in the St. Louis area, as
afterwards I packed my bags and my bikes and headed to the Wintry City just after
Jason Hawk out-dueled me for the A-class win. Jason would once again join me for 2
hours of bar-banging in the AMA District 17 hare scrambles series. Four of us lined
up on the third row of the starting grid for the +30A class, made up of guys old enough
to know better but dumb enough to throw caution to the 55-degree wind and tear
through the woods at speeds never intended for fragile bones. Two rows of riders
ahead of us departed in 30-second intervals on the TT track, which is a flat, oval-
shaped dirt track with slightly banked turns bordered by a plywood wall. I once
attended a TT race at Belleville and concluded that the hyper-modified motorcycles
and ATV’s racing around a quarter-mile flat track for 5 minutes at a time fell into the
category of drag racing and hill climbing in measuring bang for buck. The whole thing
sure seemed like overkill, but as the starting point of the hare scramble the TT track
worked very well.
For those who have read my 157 race reports leading up to this one, there’s a
common theme concerning dead-engine starts: I suck at’em. But as they say, every
dog has its day, and this one was mine. For only the second time ever, I pulled the
holeshot and led the +30A class into the woods.
The BET course was in absolutely pristine condition, after a week or so without much
rainfall. I led our class of four through the singletrack on south end of the property,
across the concrete erosion control structure on the southeast corner, then up and
down the rollercoaster trail that lines the eastern boundary of the club grounds.
Through here I caught up to David Brewster in the Open A class, attempting to pass a
slower rider. David made the pass and edged himself out of sight while I tried to find
a path around the same guy. Meanwhile, whatever gap I’d put between the other three
riders in my class quickly disappeared.
Eventually I found a way around the slower Open A rider near the first checkpoint on
the northeast side of the property. Richard Bruce was now riding on my back tire and
would stay close throughout the tight, twisting trails on the north half of the course. As
with past BET hare scrambles courses, a second checkpoint was placed along the
northwest corner of the property, followed by a high-speed run next to the country road
leading to the club’s entrance.
As we neared the end of the loop, I missed a turn leading down to a levee across a
small lake. Richard Bruce followed me, but as we realized our mistake he turned
back around more quickly. From there, I’d never see him again. I checked into the
scoring barrels in 2nd place and would hold that position throughout the rest of the
race.
On my second lap, a bottleneck had developed at the concrete erosion control
structure on the southeast side of the property. The structure had an uneven surface
patterned in the shape of an inflatable floor of a Moonwalk ride at a county fair, which
we crossed at an off-camber angle. The trail leading up to it had just enough moisture
to dampen the concrete, causing rear tires to slide down the slippery slope. I bullied
my way past the riders waiting their turn and found a higher, drier line across the
concrete. Fifteen lappers, all passed at once.
My third pass through the concrete structure took more maneuvering past an even
larger bottleneck backed all the way up to a high off-camber singletrack trail leading to
the far corner of the property. While 20 or so riders idled in a long line, I edged my
around them all and found the same high line over the concrete. From there it was 6
more laps of dodging lapped riders. As second-place AA rider Lee Lankutis would
describe after the race, the lappers either helped tremendously in moving over, or
painfully hindered progress for lack of alternative lines through the tight trails. For the
most part the lapped riders moved over quickly and sometimes to their own
detriment. I was helped more than hurt by lapped riders. In a tight section on the north
side of the course, a slower rider let me by at the crest of one of the many mining-
induced ridges, only to fall over onto another rider who was also stopped on the top of
the ridge. In another spot in same area of the course, I followed three slower riders for
a few minutes, when suddenly they all flew past the same turn I'd missed on the first
lap. I passed without having to pass.
Somewhere near the halfway point in the race, I nearly ended my day attempting a
James “Bubba” Stewart launch over a medium-sized jump atop a ridge. The trail was
wide and the jump had two ATV tracks through the center. On previous laps I’d
jumped it in 4th gear through the lower trajectory provided by the ATV tracks, but in
trying to make a pass on slower riders, I decided to use a line where the ATV’s hadn't
been. Two results came of this: 1) I jumped higher; and 2) I was much closer to the
trees at the edge of the trail. The first part was fun; the second part nearly knocked me
off the bike. A tree limb hung just low enough to whack me in the helmet, dizzy my
aching head and cause me to bite my lip. I stuck to the center line after that.
At the two-hour mark, the checkered flag came out and I took home 2nd place in +30A.
Chris Graber took the overall win, while Rick Kinkelaar won the Open A class.
Longtime veteran Tanner England took the top spot in the +40A class. David Brewster
DNF'ed after wrenching his back while crossing the concrete structure, and Jason
Hawk took 4th place in +30A. The well-attended race was one of the best BET races
I've participated in, thanks to an awesome course and excellent riding conditions. I
was sore for two days following the race, but what else is new? Old muscles awake
slowly….
March 30, 2008
Hooppole, Illinois
2nd of 10 in +30A
There’s a fine line between economy and stupidity, and I’m well on my way to finding
it. My newest motorcycle is in its third racing season, my bike hauler is a 178,000-mile
pickup truck with a transmission destined to fail at any moment, and heck, even my
noggin protector has not so gracefully entered its fourth year of saving what's left of my
brain. Somehow, though, it always seems to come together on race day. For round #2
of WFO Promotion’s hare scrambles series, economy and stupidity nearly combined
for a class win.
The Hooppole property makes for a great Spring venue, with plenty of drainage-
friendly sand mixed in with loamy soil. The course is split between north and south
sections of woods with two long sprints across harvested fields to get there and back.
The ATV’s were already tearing through course when I arrived, so I took a peek inside
the north woods and saw a skinny dude with long, braided ponytails flying down the
trail. The ATV race ended as I hiked back to my truck, where along the way I noticed
the skinny ponytail guy removing…her helmet. It was Quad Girl, a/k/a Kim Muzzarelli,
fourth place finisher in the Quad B class.
For this race I wanted to show off the only new thing of any moto-related sort that I
bought in the off-season, a Thor chest protector and BRM Offroad number plate, but
my fingers were cold while setting up for the race – my body’s way of telling me to
wear warm gear. So on came the riding jacket, and the new chest protector became
my little special secret.
Over 40 riders lined up in the A class row, in one of the most well-attended WFO
races I've seen. The starting line in loamy corn stalks suited me well as I held the
throttle wide open to a 55-gallon drum marking the first turn. A dash to the woods
followed, where after minor jockeying for position I found myself somewhere around
10th in a long line of aggressive riders. Near the end of the off-camber trails where’d I’
d spotted Quad Girl in the morning, the 4-stroke KTM of Rick Kinkelaar showed up
beside me as we exited the woods for the first of two long fields requiring the speed
and ballzification which gives WFO Promotions its name.
Rick blazed a trail ahead of me, full throttle at 75mph across a choppy cornfield which
tested the ability of our steering dampers to prevent the sort of headshake that ejects
riders into the ground. Certain individuals might believe that attempting to hold
straight a set of handlebars determined to go their own way with the throttle held wide
open would constitute stupidity. Those individuals would be correct.
After about a ¼ mile of this, I grabbed a handful of front brake to make a right hand
turn across a fence row that brought us to a muddy drainage ditch. The shortest path
was, naturally, the slimiest and most risky, but Rick headed straight for it and so did I.
A series of wood pallets helped keep us out of the deep mud in the bottom of the
ditch, but the ATV’s had rearranged them just enough to kill the momentum I needed
to quickly launch the KX250 up the other side. The rear tire found just enough traction
to propel me over the top, but neither Rick nor I gained anything for our efforts except
more mud on our motorcycles.
Now in the south part of the course, we blitzed through some GNCC-style trails and
into another open field. This one was both softer and rougher than the previous field,
which sounds funny until you think about what something like this does to soil.
Choppy on top; spongy underneath.
Next up was about 200 yards of new singletrack followed by an overhanging 18-inch
log that would whack me in the head every other lap. The coolest little feature of the
course came after that, a v-shaped cattle guard over a fence. The brave guy in front of
me launched his bike over the top sailed across the fence. I took a more calculated
(read: slow) approach and eased myself over the metal bars. A nice section of
singletrack followed, with plenty of tight trees, roots and sand. Next was a return trip
through soybean stubble as fast as the KX250 would go, which then took us back to
the scoring barrels.
A few laps into the race, around the same time I found a way around #499 Shawn
Minnaert, #420 Tim Ferrell inexplicably waved me on by. From there I led the +30A
class for several more laps. Each time I passed through the scoring barrels, I
dumped the clutch, coated the scoring guys with a silty loam, and sped 300 yards to a
beautiful 3rd gear lefthander turn with the most perfect foot-high berm guiding us back
into the woods.
I've encountered a lot of interesting wildlife on race courses, but none compared to
the beast that nearly ran me over – twice. This animal was a tractor pulling a liquid
manure spreader. Early in the race I had to pass this massive machine along a fence
row and beat it to a 180-degree turn to reach the other side of the fence. The second
encounter came as it was lumbering its way through a gap in the woods to another
field. Just as I was about to launch myself over the v-shaped cattle guard, the huge
hunk of steel and rubber tires appeared at the exact spot I would have landed.
Disaster avoided – barely.
On my final trip around the course, I tried to pass a lapper and lost momentum up an
off-camber hillside. The loose soil made traction difficult from a dead stop. Tim Ferrell
flew by while I let the rear tire spin in the sand and from there I wouldn't get close
enough to have a shot at regaining the lead. Tim held on for the class win, followed by
me and Shawn Minnaert riding on a flat tire. Adam Bonneur took the overall win,
followed by perennial fast guy Phil Converse. Rick Kinkelaar matched my 2nd place
effort in the Open A class. In all, over 200 bikes, quads and mini’s participated in
another excellent WFO event.
Belleville, Illinois
2nd of 4 in +30A
Now that I’m 3 winters into my Chicago adventure, one thing is certain: until I develop
an affinity for sub-freezing riding conditions, every Monday after the first race of the
season I will feel like a guy who just received his first prostate exam. Clever me,
thinking a bicycle trainer would raise my preseason fitness to an in-season level. The
Belleville Enduro Team’s hare scramble proved there’s no substitute for a good
flogging on tight, twisty trails.
My last trip here in 2005 bought an end to full-time riding in the St. Louis area, as
afterwards I packed my bags and my bikes and headed to the Wintry City just after
Jason Hawk out-dueled me for the A-class win. Jason would once again join me for 2
hours of bar-banging in the AMA District 17 hare scrambles series. Four of us lined
up on the third row of the starting grid for the +30A class, made up of guys old enough
to know better but dumb enough to throw caution to the 55-degree wind and tear
through the woods at speeds never intended for fragile bones. Two rows of riders
ahead of us departed in 30-second intervals on the TT track, which is a flat, oval-
shaped dirt track with slightly banked turns bordered by a plywood wall. I once
attended a TT race at Belleville and concluded that the hyper-modified motorcycles
and ATV’s racing around a quarter-mile flat track for 5 minutes at a time fell into the
category of drag racing and hill climbing in measuring bang for buck. The whole thing
sure seemed like overkill, but as the starting point of the hare scramble the TT track
worked very well.
For those who have read my 157 race reports leading up to this one, there’s a
common theme concerning dead-engine starts: I suck at’em. But as they say, every
dog has its day, and this one was mine. For only the second time ever, I pulled the
holeshot and led the +30A class into the woods.
The BET course was in absolutely pristine condition, after a week or so without much
rainfall. I led our class of four through the singletrack on south end of the property,
across the concrete erosion control structure on the southeast corner, then up and
down the rollercoaster trail that lines the eastern boundary of the club grounds.
Through here I caught up to David Brewster in the Open A class, attempting to pass a
slower rider. David made the pass and edged himself out of sight while I tried to find
a path around the same guy. Meanwhile, whatever gap I’d put between the other three
riders in my class quickly disappeared.
Eventually I found a way around the slower Open A rider near the first checkpoint on
the northeast side of the property. Richard Bruce was now riding on my back tire and
would stay close throughout the tight, twisting trails on the north half of the course. As
with past BET hare scrambles courses, a second checkpoint was placed along the
northwest corner of the property, followed by a high-speed run next to the country road
leading to the club’s entrance.
As we neared the end of the loop, I missed a turn leading down to a levee across a
small lake. Richard Bruce followed me, but as we realized our mistake he turned
back around more quickly. From there, I’d never see him again. I checked into the
scoring barrels in 2nd place and would hold that position throughout the rest of the
race.
On my second lap, a bottleneck had developed at the concrete erosion control
structure on the southeast side of the property. The structure had an uneven surface
patterned in the shape of an inflatable floor of a Moonwalk ride at a county fair, which
we crossed at an off-camber angle. The trail leading up to it had just enough moisture
to dampen the concrete, causing rear tires to slide down the slippery slope. I bullied
my way past the riders waiting their turn and found a higher, drier line across the
concrete. Fifteen lappers, all passed at once.
My third pass through the concrete structure took more maneuvering past an even
larger bottleneck backed all the way up to a high off-camber singletrack trail leading to
the far corner of the property. While 20 or so riders idled in a long line, I edged my
around them all and found the same high line over the concrete. From there it was 6
more laps of dodging lapped riders. As second-place AA rider Lee Lankutis would
describe after the race, the lappers either helped tremendously in moving over, or
painfully hindered progress for lack of alternative lines through the tight trails. For the
most part the lapped riders moved over quickly and sometimes to their own
detriment. I was helped more than hurt by lapped riders. In a tight section on the north
side of the course, a slower rider let me by at the crest of one of the many mining-
induced ridges, only to fall over onto another rider who was also stopped on the top of
the ridge. In another spot in same area of the course, I followed three slower riders for
a few minutes, when suddenly they all flew past the same turn I'd missed on the first
lap. I passed without having to pass.
Somewhere near the halfway point in the race, I nearly ended my day attempting a
James “Bubba” Stewart launch over a medium-sized jump atop a ridge. The trail was
wide and the jump had two ATV tracks through the center. On previous laps I’d
jumped it in 4th gear through the lower trajectory provided by the ATV tracks, but in
trying to make a pass on slower riders, I decided to use a line where the ATV’s hadn't
been. Two results came of this: 1) I jumped higher; and 2) I was much closer to the
trees at the edge of the trail. The first part was fun; the second part nearly knocked me
off the bike. A tree limb hung just low enough to whack me in the helmet, dizzy my
aching head and cause me to bite my lip. I stuck to the center line after that.
At the two-hour mark, the checkered flag came out and I took home 2nd place in +30A.
Chris Graber took the overall win, while Rick Kinkelaar won the Open A class.
Longtime veteran Tanner England took the top spot in the +40A class. David Brewster
DNF'ed after wrenching his back while crossing the concrete structure, and Jason
Hawk took 4th place in +30A. The well-attended race was one of the best BET races
I've participated in, thanks to an awesome course and excellent riding conditions. I
was sore for two days following the race, but what else is new? Old muscles awake
slowly….
March 30, 2008
Hooppole, Illinois
2nd of 10 in +30A
There’s a fine line between economy and stupidity, and I’m well on my way to finding
it. My newest motorcycle is in its third racing season, my bike hauler is a 178,000-mile
pickup truck with a transmission destined to fail at any moment, and heck, even my
noggin protector has not so gracefully entered its fourth year of saving what's left of my
brain. Somehow, though, it always seems to come together on race day. For round #2
of WFO Promotion’s hare scrambles series, economy and stupidity nearly combined
for a class win.
The Hooppole property makes for a great Spring venue, with plenty of drainage-
friendly sand mixed in with loamy soil. The course is split between north and south
sections of woods with two long sprints across harvested fields to get there and back.
The ATV’s were already tearing through course when I arrived, so I took a peek inside
the north woods and saw a skinny dude with long, braided ponytails flying down the
trail. The ATV race ended as I hiked back to my truck, where along the way I noticed
the skinny ponytail guy removing…her helmet. It was Quad Girl, a/k/a Kim Muzzarelli,
fourth place finisher in the Quad B class.
For this race I wanted to show off the only new thing of any moto-related sort that I
bought in the off-season, a Thor chest protector and BRM Offroad number plate, but
my fingers were cold while setting up for the race – my body’s way of telling me to
wear warm gear. So on came the riding jacket, and the new chest protector became
my little special secret.
Over 40 riders lined up in the A class row, in one of the most well-attended WFO
races I've seen. The starting line in loamy corn stalks suited me well as I held the
throttle wide open to a 55-gallon drum marking the first turn. A dash to the woods
followed, where after minor jockeying for position I found myself somewhere around
10th in a long line of aggressive riders. Near the end of the off-camber trails where’d I’
d spotted Quad Girl in the morning, the 4-stroke KTM of Rick Kinkelaar showed up
beside me as we exited the woods for the first of two long fields requiring the speed
and ballzification which gives WFO Promotions its name.
Rick blazed a trail ahead of me, full throttle at 75mph across a choppy cornfield which
tested the ability of our steering dampers to prevent the sort of headshake that ejects
riders into the ground. Certain individuals might believe that attempting to hold
straight a set of handlebars determined to go their own way with the throttle held wide
open would constitute stupidity. Those individuals would be correct.
After about a ¼ mile of this, I grabbed a handful of front brake to make a right hand
turn across a fence row that brought us to a muddy drainage ditch. The shortest path
was, naturally, the slimiest and most risky, but Rick headed straight for it and so did I.
A series of wood pallets helped keep us out of the deep mud in the bottom of the
ditch, but the ATV’s had rearranged them just enough to kill the momentum I needed
to quickly launch the KX250 up the other side. The rear tire found just enough traction
to propel me over the top, but neither Rick nor I gained anything for our efforts except
more mud on our motorcycles.
Now in the south part of the course, we blitzed through some GNCC-style trails and
into another open field. This one was both softer and rougher than the previous field,
which sounds funny until you think about what something like this does to soil.
Choppy on top; spongy underneath.
Next up was about 200 yards of new singletrack followed by an overhanging 18-inch
log that would whack me in the head every other lap. The coolest little feature of the
course came after that, a v-shaped cattle guard over a fence. The brave guy in front of
me launched his bike over the top sailed across the fence. I took a more calculated
(read: slow) approach and eased myself over the metal bars. A nice section of
singletrack followed, with plenty of tight trees, roots and sand. Next was a return trip
through soybean stubble as fast as the KX250 would go, which then took us back to
the scoring barrels.
A few laps into the race, around the same time I found a way around #499 Shawn
Minnaert, #420 Tim Ferrell inexplicably waved me on by. From there I led the +30A
class for several more laps. Each time I passed through the scoring barrels, I
dumped the clutch, coated the scoring guys with a silty loam, and sped 300 yards to a
beautiful 3rd gear lefthander turn with the most perfect foot-high berm guiding us back
into the woods.
I've encountered a lot of interesting wildlife on race courses, but none compared to
the beast that nearly ran me over – twice. This animal was a tractor pulling a liquid
manure spreader. Early in the race I had to pass this massive machine along a fence
row and beat it to a 180-degree turn to reach the other side of the fence. The second
encounter came as it was lumbering its way through a gap in the woods to another
field. Just as I was about to launch myself over the v-shaped cattle guard, the huge
hunk of steel and rubber tires appeared at the exact spot I would have landed.
Disaster avoided – barely.
On my final trip around the course, I tried to pass a lapper and lost momentum up an
off-camber hillside. The loose soil made traction difficult from a dead stop. Tim Ferrell
flew by while I let the rear tire spin in the sand and from there I wouldn't get close
enough to have a shot at regaining the lead. Tim held on for the class win, followed by
me and Shawn Minnaert riding on a flat tire. Adam Bonneur took the overall win,
followed by perennial fast guy Phil Converse. Rick Kinkelaar matched my 2nd place
effort in the Open A class. In all, over 200 bikes, quads and mini’s participated in
another excellent WFO event.
Belleville, Illinois
Hooppole, Illinois
Hooppole, Illinois
| Ballzification: the act of putting all fears aside and doing something yo’ mamma would tell you is a very, very bad idea. |
 |  |  |