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1st of 12 in Open B
Funny how some little mysteries in life have a way of solving themselves. After nearly running
out of gas at Polo, I went on a fact-finding mission to figure out where the fuel was escaping.
Keep in mind, when it's me trying to identify a problem, most other people's logic need not
apply. Case in point: two years ago when I couldn't figure out why a tank of gas was only
lasting 90 minutes, I spent months playing with the carb. Actual problem: hole in the fuel line.
Fast forward to MHSC Round #13 at Sedalia, and I got lucky. The prior weekend I had filled
up the gas tank and let it sit, figuring an obvious leak would show up in a wet, oily spot on the
garage floor. The floor stayed dry, but when I unloaded the bike at the race site, the tank was
messy with fuel that had sloshed its way past the gas cap during the 3-1/2 hour drive. A
readjustment of the rubber piece inside the gas cap, and like magic, problem solved.
Conditions at Sedalia could not have been better. A nice rain during the week made the trails
loamy and full of traction, with only a hint of dust in the open areas. The course still had its
share of rocks, but several miles of singletrack, left pure and unadulterated by the absence of
our 4-wheeled friends, was absolutely beautiful. The 9-mile course was split roughly in thirds,
with the first part following the ATV route through some tight creek beds that were damp but
mostly free of water. In a couple of spots, the exits from the creeks were up short, steep banks
that were slippery and full of tree roots. The middle section of the course split off from the
ATV route about 3-4 miles into the loop, just after we made a run through Lake Creek and
climbed out of a very slick creek bank. Like last year, a check was set up there as we headed
into the bike-only trail. It wasn't quite White City, Illinois singletrack but close enough. The
trail wound its way back to Lake Creek, at the same spot as the creek-side check, where we
linked up with the ATV trails and a couple miles later we were back at the staging area.
On the start, I lined up on the inside and was a contender for the holeshot until Dwayne
Parish flew by on my left. I was second into the woods and followed him into the first creek
section. It wasn't an area well suited for passing, but I took a chance by hopping over some
logs lying across the creek. Everyone else, including Dwayne, was going around the logs and
I was able to take the lead at that spot. Soon after, I put enough distance on the other riders
in my class that I couldn't hear anything except my own engine. Just as I was settling into a
nice rhythm near the midpoint of the first lap, I could feel a small pain in my left leg, just above
the knee. Soon after, an identical pain developed in my right leg. Hmmm....leg cramps??
Never had those before. I tried to stand up and stretch out my quad muscles, but the pain
persisted. Not enough to keep me from riding hard, but plenty annoying.
On the second lap, not too long after the singletrack section began, an ambulance was
parked out in one of the pastures. That is never a good thing. In the woods, a group of
people attended to all-around good guy Shawn Hall, who had crashed badly and suffered a
broken leg, hip, and wrist. Further evidence that trees don't often move over for dirt bikers.
Shawn was still out here a half-hour later, while I was on my third lap.
Other than my leg cramps, I felt good the whole race and kept up a pretty good pace. The
fast guys in the 4-stroke B class caught up to me on my third lap, and I tried to hang with
them, but they keep up a pretty fast pace. With nobody to race with but lappers, my speed
dropped off a bit and my 4th lap was my slowest. At the end of that lap, Adam Ashcroft
passed me just before the Lake Creek crossing. I followed him through the scoring trailer and
began my fifth and final lap behind him. Near the staging area Adam stalled, which may have
been the point in which a tree branch jammed about an inch into his hand (he still finished the
race, and very well).
By this time my legs were really beginning to hurt and I didn't stand up much on the last lap
(then again, I don't do much standing to begin with). The worst part was the run through Lake
Creek, which had developed Supercross-deep whoops and had enough water to cloud my
vision as I splashed through it in 3rd gear. As if whoops themselves weren't bad enough,
these were made from piles of walnut-sized gravel. Each lap, I was downright slow through
there.
The race ended uneventfully, with another strong ride and first place finish in my class. The
results showed that one of my laps was missed by the scanner and placed me in the lower
half of my class, but backup sheets confirmed my win. Steve Weible printed out the revised
Open B class results and handed them to me, gave me a pat on the back and said, "You get
to put'em up..." and then added something to the effect of "Good luck with that." Marty Smith
got knocked back to second place with the revision, and then got dropped to third place when
Ray Osia noticed a lap was also missing from his results.
So with 3 class wins in a row, where is this newfound speed coming from? Who knows, but it
sure is fun. I still have aspirations of becoming a consistent top-20 finisher, but for now I'll
have to settle for a nasty mud race for a shot at some overall points.
September 8, 2002
Eugene, Missouri
1st of 13 in Open B
The first four minutes of the Eugene hare scramble went something like this: 3-kick start, back
of the pack choking on dust, creeping along in first gear while the frontrunners blazed ahead
breathing clean air, hard pass on PizzaMan (sorry, dude), deep rut in which I crashed on the
practice lap, unseen in the dust, again taking me down, PizzaMan and another bike passing
me while I picked up the bike, then more dust.
Eugene is typically the 90-pound nerd in most 1960's teenage movies, but this Eugene beat
me up so bad that I could hardly get out of bed the next morning. This Eugene hangs with the
'hoods, smokes unfiltered Camels and wears a wife-beater around the house. Eugene
flat-out brutalized me. With two crashes on the practice lap and three more during the race, I
left with a bruised right palm, a swollen left knee, and a multi-colored titty-shiner, thanks to a
strategically placed spring-loaded cedar branch [note to racers: yeah, you know what I'm
talkin' about]. I also came away with the Open B class win. It's the classic risk-reward
scenario: take a bunch of chances to make up time, and it might actually work. The downside
is feeling like I did after the race.
The Eugene course was a new venue on the MHSC schedule, and since it was a bike-only
race, I was looking forward to some Polo-like singletrack. What we got was the most technical
course I've seen in a long time. The starting area was placed in an open field that linked up
with the last few miles of the course. The first quarter-mile was tight single-track with no
possibility of passing, so the start was critical. I had been getting some good starts in the last
three races and expected the trend to continue, but the engine didn't fire on the first kick. Or
the second. By the time I got started, most of the class was already into the woods, led by
Wayne Hatfield. I was behind PizzaMan on his bored-out XR250 and couldn't see much of the
trail ahead of me. I finally got my chance to make up some time in a long creek section that
led to the scoring trailer. The creek was mostly flat rock, very slick with many boulders thrown
in, and lots of water. Carefully, I passed and passed again and made it to the scoring trailer
in 7th place, a minute behind the leader.
I spent some more time eating dust on the first full lap before the field spread out, and my
main challenge was keeping from stalling the bike, which must have happened 10 times
during the race. Just before the long creek section, the trail dropped down a steep boulder
field with jagged basketball-sized rocks, kicked around by bike after bike, each boulder slowly
rolling to the bottom of the ravine. As if the stationary rocks weren't hard enough to deal
with...what's next? Moving trees? Anyway, I caught up to Ray Osia and Matt Coffman and tried
to get around Ray in the creek section, but couldn't make the pass. The three of us checked
through the scoring trailer within 15 seconds of each other. At the beginning of the second
full lap I crashed hard in the first woods section, down below the railroad tracks. My knee took
a hard hit but I picked myself up and began to chase down Matt and Ray. Matt, back racing
after a nasty finger break at Florence, had his clutch line break on that lap and I moved into
second place, still chasing Ray. I eventually caught up to him and ate his dust for most of the
lap. Passing was nearly impossible, so I hung back and waited for the creek section to make
my move. Ray rode flawlessly through the creek, but with Matt out of the race I figured I had
nothing to lose, so I did a Kamikaze charge through the deepest part of the water, temporarily
blinding myself but making the pass.
After the scoring trailer the course curved around the pit area and entered a fast straightaway
before heading back into the woods. I knew that Ray, with his big 4-stroke, would try to get
back around me in the straightaway and make me eat his dust again. He cut to my inside, just
before a sharp right-hand turn before the woods, and was ahead of me until going wide into
the turn. I was able to sneak inside him and barely beat him into the woods. So I passed, got
passed, and passed again, all within a half-mile. From there, I put some distance between him
and built up a 2-minute lead by the end of the third complete lap. On my final lap, I continued
to ride hard and stayed clear (sort of) of the dust kicked up by lappers. I had no idea where
Ray was and figured he was just behind me, so I kept riding hard through the long creek
section and ended up crashing in the rocks, a mere quarter-mile from the finish. Little did I
know that Ray had suffered a flat front tire on the final lap and had to slow down considerably.
My right hand was hurting as I limped to the finish with a very sore body.
Brandon Forrester took the overall win and solidified his top spot in the point standings.
Mathematically, Steve Leivan still has a chance, but either way, these two fast guys have
been in a class of their own during the second half of the season. On Monday morning
following the race, I performed my best impression of an 80-year-old man. Days later, little
pieces of Eugene lived with me in the form of thorns lodged in my forearms. Eugene is one
bad mutha. Word. [note to readers: that is the extent of my hip-hop vocabulary for now, but I
have been watching MTV's Cribs and will write my next race report Doggy Style, if you know
what I mean. Yes, you do.]
