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Hell on Wheels
6th of 8 in Open A
2nd of 6 in Vet (MHSC)
Why can I ride 2 classes? Let me explain.
Diary of Events of 5/4/03:
6:10 a.m.
Wake-up call. Eat breakfast and check Intellicast radar summary on internet. Shades of
green, yellow, red, orange, and that was just my Lucky Charms.
6:48 a.m.
Begin loading bike and gear into truck. Revolutionary idea hits me like Butterbean's gloves
against Knoxville's head: why not bring two pairs of goggles today? Begin search for missing
pieces to spare goggle/roll-off parts. Remember that one of the parts now needed may have
been discarded in the kitchen trashcan last week. Kitchen floor covered with 5 days worth of
garbage.
7:12 a.m.
Missing goggle/roll-off part found on workbench in garage, in plain sight.
7:13 a.m.
Rain begins.
7:15 a.m.
Finish loading bike and gear. Having second thoughts about breaking out brand new AXO
boots for this race. Depart for Kahoka.
7:26 a.m.
I-64 appears more like a river than a highway. An H2 passes me pulling a shirtless guy on a
wakeboard. Actually, it was a Blazer pulling a trailer, but who could tell.
9:17 a.m.
Welcome to Hannibal, referred to in the Rand-McNally Pointless Guide to Completely
Irrelevant Factoids as "City of 13 Speed Limit Changes." Still raining.
9:28 a.m.
Rain ends.
9:30 a.m.
Rain begins again.
10:13 a.m.
Arrive at the Burkhart Farm; make a run for signup shed. Only MHSC regular in sight is Tom
Eidam at the signup table.
10:15 a.m.
The Illinois guys are laughing, having fun setting up in the rain. Mud is their friend, their ally,
their means by which to humble the Missouri contingent, most of who are enjoying the
comforts of their dry, heated homes.
10:54 a.m.
Ray Osia, MHSC #370, stops by on his KTM to say hello. Ray is wearing the orange vest of a
course worker. Ray is working the race. Ray appears to have made the smart choice today.
11:14 a.m.
Deposit gas jug at usual location next to the northwest part of the pit area, along with a
Ziplock-sealed set of spare goggles.
11:30 a.m.
P.A. announcement for riders' meeting.
11:31 a.m.
Another riders' meet announcement.
11:32 a.m.
I think Mike really wants to get the riders' meeting started.
11:37 a.m.
Riders' meeting uneventful. Course described as 8 miles long.
12:02 p.m.
Proceed to starting area in light drizzle. Open A class starts on 2nd row, right behind the
Pro's. Yeah, cool. Recognize familiar face of Lee Lankutis, D-17 fast guy, a few bikes to my
right. Will be the last time I see him all day. He is still fast.
12:08 p.m.
Drizzle turns into downpour, complete with thunder and large bolts of lightening. I visualize the
headline in next month's Dirt Rider magazine: Race Field Shockingly Fast at Kahoka
National Hare Scramble. Enduro jacket not waterproof around arms. Getting very wet very
fast.
12:17 p.m.
Still waiting to start. Cold. Wet. Envious of guys with pit crews holding large umbrellas over
them. My ass, formerly the only dry part of my body, is now wet as the rain trickles down my
seat. Fred Andrews, top dog in the pro class, arrives fashionably late and assumes the inside
position.
12:19 p.m.
Pro class takes off, spreading high, arcing plumes of grass and mud, all in my direction. My
goggles are now completely saturated and virtually useless before the race has even begun.
12:20 p.m.
We're off...covered in mud within the first 100 yards. Goggles cloud my vision.
12:20:13 p.m.
Approximately 200 yards into the course, in the high-speed open area next to the pits, I
attempt to remove the tear-off I had carefully taped over my roll-offs to shield them from a
first-turn mud bath. What has proven to be a very smart idea in the past turns into a stupid
one as I pull off not only the tear-off, but the goggles as well. No time or desire to stop and put
them back on. Goggles get tossed over the pit-row fence, which is the last I'll ever see of them.
12:20:18 p.m.
Fast guy with bad start makes up time and passes me just before our entry into the motocross
track. Shotgun blast of mud flies into both of my unprotected eyes. Somehow manage to
navigate the mud/sawdust track, but it is in the best shape it will be for the whole day and will
only get worse.
12:22 p.m.
Into the woods we go, and the ATV's have made some nice berms for us. Spectators watching
near the pits as I slip-slide around the turns and head out into the first of several open fields.
12:23 p.m.
Open fields are already nasty, and I'm only about the 25th bike to pass through. Back into the
woods, the trails are muddy but passable. Front brake virtually disappears. I blame it on those
lousy Brembo's but in reality the mud has already eaten away all that was left of the brake
pads.
12:30 p.m.
Second pass through the motocross track, just a simple on-an-off straightaway that takes us
down a hill and back up, then into the woods. Bike struggles to make it up the hill in the deep
mud/sawdust.
12:41 p.m.
Third, and longest, pass through the motocross track. Not so bad, but I have to remind myself
we're only on the first lap and I got a head start on most of the field by riding the Open A class.
12:53 p.m.
Kevin Ruckdeschell cheers me on near the end of the first lap. Kevin decided not to break in
his brand new 300EXC on the Kahoka course. A wise man.
12:54 p.m.
Start of 2nd lap. Course in not-so-great shape now. At the far end of the pits, a nice lady
helps me put on the fresh set of goggles I had left next to my gas jug. She suggests that I
might not be wearing them 20 minutes from now.
1:01 p.m.
Course is deteriorating rapidly, with wheel-deep ruts developing in many places. Rain had
subsided a bit on the first lap but is now pouring down so hard that I can't see much of
anything. That nice lady was correct - goggles are now off.
1:13 p.m.
Course is getting interesting as water fills the gullies and low spots. Burkhart has done a
good job of routing the course around the deepest parts of the creeks.
1:22 p.m.
In a very narrow section of woods, I come up on a stuck rider on a Yamaha and attempt to
move around him, getting my own bike stuck in the process. The Yamaha guy helps me out
and I am now obligated to help him out. Fortunately, a simple push on the back of his bike is
all that is required to un-stick his bike. Approximately 100 feet later, like a guided missile
unable to abort, I head straight down the center of a long, deep rut and come to an abrupt
halt. Luck is on my side, as I can see the next checkpoint ahead. One of the course workers
takes pity on me and helps me extricate my bike from the rut. He asks me to tell the guys at
the main checkpoint that something needs to be done about the wooden bridge. What
wooden bridge? I have no recollection of any wooden bridge, but at this point every trail is a
little river in itself, so the bridge could have been concealed by rushing water. I agree to relay
the course worker's message...I'm sure they'll get right on it.
1:40 p.m.
Motocross track is horrible. A couple of times the bike nearly comes to a complete stop on the
uphills, wheel spinning in 2nd gear, throttle wide open. At the same time I'm cursing the
truckloads of sawdust added to the track, I have to admit that the track wouldn't be passable
without it. But it gives me a good excuse to try out creative new combinations of various
four-letter words.
1:51 p.m.
Second lap complete. Nice lady helps me fuel the bike and I dump my worthless goggles next
to the gas jug. As I head toward the big ravine just past my makeshift pit area, I pause to
check out the lines. I pick one just to the left of the main line, which looked a bit nasty. As I
start the descent down into the ravine, I can hear a guy behind me coming up fast and yelling
to make his presence known. As I'm about halfway to the bottom, he charges down the ravine,
barely missing me on my right and takes the main line at a speed I wouldn't have attempted
even if the ground were perfectly dry. By now the main line is full of water a couple feet
across, and there's no way to tell how deep the rut is. Had it been deep enough, the rut would
have stopped his bike and thrown him into the opposite side of the ravine. Apparently that's a
risk this guy was willing to take. He slams into the bottom of the ravine with a huge splash of
water, somehow stays on the bike, and his momentum shoots him up the other side. By the
time I make it up the other side and out of the woods (a couple seconds later, at most), the
guy is already around the first turn of the grass-turned-mud track about 200 yards ahead.
Unreal, those pros. I attempt to go fast using the same general lines as this guy and come
ever-so-close to burying the bike in a 2-foot rut in the middle of the field. Not sure how I made
it out of there.
2:07 p.m.
Bike seat is very slippery and I'm sliding backwards on even the smallest of hills. Hard to keep
it going straight, or going at all. Front and rear brakes are pretty much gone, but the mud
gives me enough natural braking power to make due and besides, I could probably walk faster
than the speeds I'm attaining in the woods. The sound of the wheels passing over the slop is
like taking handfuls of mud and continuously squeezing it out through your fingers. Most of
the trails in the woods are now two ruts - a deep one down the center where wheels have
passed, and a shallow one to the side, created from the boots of guys extending their legs for
balance.
2:10 p.m.
Good news: the rain has finally stopped.
2:25 p.m.
Long run through motocross track not so fun. Actually, it just plain sucks.
2:29 p.m.
Around an easy turn in a grass/mud field, ever-so-slightly off-camber, my bike refuses to go
straight. The back wheel spins in the heavy clay and encourages me to do donuts. Around
and around I go. But now is not the time or place for that, and I urge the bike to behave.
2:33 p.m.
K-Ruck #94, still standing near the motocross track, shouts encouragingly that I'm in second
place. Had I been Kevin, I would have been long gone at this point, somewhere warm and dry.
But Kevin stuck around because that's the kind of guy he is.
2:34 p.m.
Third lap complete. I stop to clean off my watch and it says I've been riding for about 2 hours
and 15 minutes. Decision time...to go again or not to, that is the question. I decide to go again
because I don't want to be a quitter. But I'd really like to quit.
2:35 p.m.
The big ravine just after the pits has a couple guys stuck at the bottom. I take a wide alternate
route to the left and somehow make it up the other side.
2:42 p.m.
First major challenge of this lap, and I stop the bike to evaluate my options up a small hill with
many deep, water-filled ruts. No good ways around. The bike is turned off and steaming so
much that I can barely see the radiators. Chris Nesbitt comes by and tortures his engine
getting through this section. I decide I'm done torturing my bike and body and search for a
way out. I walk down the hill to a creek and see that there are trails here and there. I go back
to the bike, coast down the hill and drop the bike down into the creek. After a few minutes it
stops steaming, so I fire it up and follow the unmarked trails. Eventually I find my way back to
the pits.
2:49 p.m.
Search begins for goggles thrown over the fence.
2:56 p.m.
Search for missing goggles ends, unsuccessfully.
3:17 p.m.
Bike loaded up; rain begins again. The positive side to riding in the rain is that there's plenty
of water to keep some of the mud from accumulating on the bike. The negative part is that my
enduro jacket didn't repel any mud and now it weighs about 10 pounds. Another downside is
that I am saturated all the way down to my underwear. Looks like I'm goin' commando for the
ride home. While changing into dry clothes, occurs to me this is the first time in many years
I've been buck naked inside a vehicle. Also occurs to me this wasn't what I had envisioned as
my next buck naked experience inside a vehicle
3:31 p.m.
Packed up and heading for home...to heck with the results. Heat turned all the way up in the
truck. Still shivering.
6:45 p.m.
Home. Warm. Dry. Shower. Underwear (finally). Sleeeeeep.
