 |  |  |
St. Joe State Park
Park Hills, Missouri
3rd of 10 in Open B
This race was the annual St. Joe enduro, the same one that just about killed me last year with 72 miles of
rocks. This year I was more prepared, starting with pre-registering by mail, downloading the route sheet
from the BlackJack Enduro website, making my own roll chart with all the speed changes, and finally,
showing up on time for the start of the race. I arose early at 5:00 a.m. and was on the road by 5:30 (probably
a new record for me). I had planned on riding with Matt Sellers, but he had a work conflict and couldn't go.
However, he had ridden at St. Joe the day before and the course was already marked, so he scouted the part
of the course that was inside the park boundaries and called me the night before with a few tips ("Watch out
for the rocks"...ya think?). When I arrived at the sign-in, I saw my name already written in on row #4, and at
that point nobody had chosen the earlier rows. It's usually not ideal to be among the first groups to start the
race, because sometimes the trails are not very well defined and you have to totally rely on looking ahead at
the arrows to see where you're supposed to go.
After my pre-race dump, I was feeling good as I pulled up to the starting area. My group of 3 riders was the
first to go into the course. One of the guys was a 250B rider and the other was pretty much a recreational
rider. In fact, after the start I never saw him again. The first few miles were pretty tame, with a 15 mph speed
average. Later it increased to 18 mph, and then 24 mph. I managed to crash during the slow section, but no
damage was done to bike or body. Conditions were a bit dusty, but being on the first row meant that there
weren't too many people ahead of me to stir up the dirt.
The course was very open and fast for an enduro, and I was pleased to see that I wasn't dropping very many
points at the checks. Plus, at the resets I actually had some time to stop and rest (unlike last year). So either
the course was faster this year or I was riding better. The only incident I had was when a tree limb pulled off
the little door that holds in the roll-off tape on my goggles, so for a while I had a three-foot trail of clear plastic
streaming behind me. Luckily the trails were dry and I didn't really need the roll-off tape anyway. The course
was set up just like last year, with a 40-mile loop that the "A" riders did twice and the "C" riders did once. The
"B" riders like me had a cut-off about 27 miles into the second loop. The last part of the loop was very rocky,
but because of the cut-off I only had to do that part once. In between loops the reset gave me about 20
minutes to rest, look over the bike, and have a snack. Again, it was a nice change from last year where I
barely had time to gas up before heading back to the trail.
The second loop was mostly uneventful, but I started to get tired about 5 miles from the end. Even so, I
finished with a score of 21, which was the lowest I'd ever carded. Too bad everyone else had low scores too.
The overall winner had a score of 6! I didn't stick around to wait for the scores to be posted because I had
been the first of the "A" and "B" riders to finish and didn't feel like waiting a few hours for everyone else to
finish and for the scores to be calculated (the scoring process takes forever). The BlackJack website had
the results posted a couple weeks later. Overall, it was a fun race that didn't beat me up nearly as badly as
the year before. After doing about 10 or so enduros, I'm finally getting decent at the timekeeping thing. After
every reset there were checks within a mile, and I was on time for every one. That was a good feeling. Check
out this race picture.
May 28, 2000
Kingman, Indiana
10th of 17 in Big B
Three inches of rain in the two days leading up to this race made things very interesting. I walked some of
the course beforehand and it reminded me a lot of the Keen farm where I used to ride. Very tight with lots of
weeds and grass, trees spaced very close together. One very nasty off-camber section was taken out
because if one rider got hung up, there was no way around. And with conditions as they were, there were
bound to be some hang-ups. While I was walking the course, the minibikes were doing their parade lap.
After the main group passed by, I suddenly heard a desperate cry for help from one of the riders, over and
over again, so desperate that it seemed he must have been trapped under his minibike. I finally found the
little guy and he had lost momentum going up a hill and couldn't get started again. A "sweep" guy came
around and we helped him get up the hill. I found another little guy (even smaller than the first one) who had
fallen over and couldn't get the bike started. I tried to start it for him but the darn engine wouldn't fire. His dad
finally found us and started the bike after one kick...after he flipped off the kill switch (duh!!).
The race started amid a rain shower that lasted just long enough for my goggles to fog up, so they came off
before the end of the first lap. I got off to a decent start but lost about 10 places when two guys in front of me
tangled up and crashed. About 5 minutes later we arrived at what seemed like the main check, except they
pointed us back to the starting area and said there would be a re-start. Apparently someone got off the
course and several others followed (including me). Riders were meeting each other head-on, so for safety
reasons they made the wise decision to start over. Some of the riders were none too happy, particularly one
guy who went ballistic with a tirade of profanity directed at a couple of the club members. If it had been me
listening to that, I probably would have sent the guy home. But the club should have known that homemade
arrows (triangle-shaped paper with two orange dots spray painted on them) would cause problems. And as
I've seen before, it doesn't work well when a club tries to run the minis and quads in a simultaneous race
prior to the bike race (on separate courses), and then combine the two courses for the motorcycles.
After what seemed like forever, they finally restarted us for a 1.5-hour race. Most of the course was rideable
except for a couple of nasty creek crossings and an uphill out of a ravine. I didn't really get hung up on any of
it, and there were plenty of people helping with the creek crossings. The only problem I had was a close
encounter with a tree branch that hit me near my right eye. If my goggles had been on, I wouldn't have even
felt it. When the race ended and I had a chance to look at it, it didn't look good. I went over to the ambulance
to see if the EMT's had something to clean and sterilize the cut, but I think they were there more for show than
for anything else. I asked them a few questions, like "Do I need stitches?" and "Are you old enough to drive
this ambulance?" and the best they could do was give me a tiny alcohol pad and a huge, face-sized
bandage. Let's see, I've got a bloody half-inch cut about one inch from my eye, and I get a 4 inch square
bandage and a sterile pad just large enough to clean a small pimple. So I used some leftover water from
the CamelBak and an old Dairy Queen napkin from the glove box and cleaned it up real good. A few days
later I had a nice black eye, my first one ever.
June 4, 2000
White City, Illinois
2nd of 11 in Open B
Oh, so close. After two hours of racing I was less than a minute behind the leader in my class. Less than
one minute from victory. If I hadn't got caught taking a shortcut through the woods, I might have won, but
more on that later. Matt and I went together and both signed up for the Open B class of the SOIL (S. Illinois)
series. White City is one of four clubs that hosts one or two races each year as part of a regional hare
scrambles series (Belleville's race was also part of this series). When we arrived and walked part of the
course, it looked to be in perfect condition, unlike the previous year when it was hot and very muddy. I've
ridden in both good and bad conditions here, so I was very pleased to see that I would only be fighting my
spodely riding skills and nothing else.
Naturally, 20 minutes before the race the skies let loose for a brief, moderate rain shower. Not much
accumulation, but just enough to make the trail very slippery. When our row started, my tire spun in the wet
grass and Matt took off ahead of me. The rain continued just long enough to render my goggles useless, so
for the second week in a row I rode most of the race with no eye protection. My shiner from the previous
week was still noticeable, and as the race progressed I was having visions of unseen tree branches poking
my eyes out. Fortunately that didn't happen, but on each of the three laps I got hung up on some obstacle.
On the first lap I didn't make it up a steep hill and lost about 5 minutes getting restarted. On lap 2, a tricky
off-camber had deteriorated to impassible, so the wasted time and energy cost me more time. The third lap
might have been my fastest, since the trails were more tacky, but some of the sections were getting torn up
and guys were getting hung up on some of the hills. At one of those hills, I took an alternate path to avoid a
downed rider, which took me right to a bunch of club guys who told me to turn around, but I didn't think I had
cut the course and just kept going. Apparently I was wrong and they wrote down my number and docked me
one minute on my overall time. After the race was done and the scores posted, I questioned the
scorekeeper about the minute added to my time. I think several guys got caught doing the same thing I did
and had already complained, so by the time I talked to the guy his patience was running out. He wasn't too
friendly and told me that if I kept pushing the issue I might not get second place, or any place at all, so I just
walked away. The incident kind of took away some of the good feelings I had from placing second, so I
grabbed my trophy and went home with Matt (he got 4th), who kept saying "Every time I go with you to an
Illinois race it rains the whole time...."
