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Warrensburg, Missouri
10th of 15 in A Sportsman
In any given hare scramble, the final results rarely tell the full story of the many individual
battles that take place throughout the race. We all have stories to tell afterwards, but every
once in awhile there’s a long-lasting duel that becomes burned into permanent memory. At
Warrensburg, I had such a battle with #237 Elston Moore, with whom I swapped positions
about a half-dozen times.
Back in action for the first time since the White Rock enduro was #791 Matt Sellers, who I
picked up in Wentzville on the way to the race site. While heading west on I-70, also know as
John’s Least Favorite Interstate in All of America, an 18-wheeler honked its horn as it passed
us in the left lane. In my experience, vehicles honk at me for two general reasons: a) they are
unhappy about something, said honk often combined with the universal hand signal of my #1
status; or b) something important is about to fall out or off of my vehicle. Matt and I assumed
the latter and looked for evidence of gear attempting to free itself from the confines of my
truck bed. Everything appeared to be in order, so we continued on. Several minutes later I
caught up to the horn-honking truck and began to pass on the left. The driver rolled down his
window and announced himself as none other than #587 David Brewster. With this year’s top
candidate for Most Outstanding Statement of the Obvious, Brewster proclaimed, “I can’t race
today!”
At the race site, we checked in and did a practice lap. The course was beautiful, as usual, with
smooth, relatively dry singletrack and a few new trails I hadn't seen before. Some of the
familiar sections were present, including a couple passes through the center of a tight,
winding creek bed and the treacherous second crossing of the large creek that flows through
the property.
On the starting line, I noticed that the 15-second board was dropping almost in slow motion as
the AA and A classes left the line. Some riders immediately detected the initial motion of the
board dropping and got a good jump, while others were slower to react. Naturally, I was a little
slow to react when the board dropped for our class and was headed for the first corner amidst
a pack of riders. As we braked for the first turn, #644 Carl Dobson's rear wheel slid out and
he fell in front of me. For an instant I had an opportunity to use his bike as launch pad, but
instead fell down with him. Observing this on the Open B starting line just behind us, #370
Ray Osia uttered another potential candidate for Most Outstanding Statement of the Obvious:
“That guy can’t buy a good start.” My front tire was lodged between Carl’s rear tire and
fender, and I yanked on the handlebars a couple times to separate my bike from his. We both
gathered ourselves and headed into the woods, me in last place and Carl just ahead. About a
half-mile later we caught back up to our class.
The first creek crossing gave me my first opportunity to make up some ground, as riders were
struggling to make a sharp left turn up the opposite bank. I passed at least one guy there and
a few others later on, including Elston Moore who had stopped briefly to fix a minor
mechanical problem. Over the course of the first lap I worked my way up to 10th place, just
behind #364 Bob Searing. On the second lap I passed #29 Steve Crews on a nasty climb up a
short hill that was becoming a bottleneck. But in the process of getting up the main line of that
hill, which was becoming a shiny, polished clay rut, a few riders got around me, one of who
might have been Elston. By the end of the lap he had turned on the speed and was nearly a
minute ahead of me in 9th place.
On the third lap I caught back up to Elston and passed him in one of the narrow creek beds
by cutting up and across one of the banks instead of following the contour of the creek. I rode
as hard as I could, but since I wasn't gaining more than a few seconds on Elston, I could
sense that a mistake-free ride from there on would be the only thing keeping me in front of
him. Mistake #1 happened near the end of the lap on a steep drop-down to cross a small
creek. On the other side were some nasty ruts that I tried to avoid by cutting to the left. When
the front wheel hit the silty creek bottom, I came to an immediate stop and gave myself a bath
in the creek. Elston passed by while I was lifting my bike out of the water. A couple corners
later I was surprised to see Elston on the ground. I passed him again just as he was about to
get going and completed the third lap in 9th place.
Our battle was even more interesting on the fourth and final lap, when I came upon two riders
stuck at the top of a short but steep, sandy hill. The approach was a quick right-hand turn,
and I couldn't see the guys stuck at the top until I had already committed myself to a deep rut
at the base of the hill. I waited a few seconds for the guys to move out of the way, but along
came Elston and found an inside line around all of us. I could see him in the distance as I
finally made it up the hill and out into an open area. Ever so slowly I reeled him in, a little at a
time, until I was close enough to pass. He and another rider were approaching the short hill of
past bottlenecks when I noticed a line about 20 yards in front of the sharp left turn where the
established route went up the hill. Elston and the other guy passed by this little shortcut but I
seized the moment and beat them both up the hill.
I stretched out a lead over Elston that was just enough that I couldn't hear his bike behind me,
but I knew he was back there just waiting for me to make a mistake. Near the end of the race
he got his chance. In the last mile or so I got bogged down by some lapped riders and Elston
caught back up. About a quarter-mile from the end was a small creek crossing that had
developed deep ruts. A few riders ahead of me were taking turns going up what appeared to
be the best alternate route and like a fool I waited for my turn. Just as I was about to drop
down into the creek and cross over, Elston snuck in ahead of me and made, in his words, a
sucker pass. But I’d had too much fun to care. Call it the evening out of karma: I had already
made two slightly questionable passes on Elston. Once again, the competitiveness of the A
Sportsman class showed in the results, as the 7th through 10th place spots were only a
handful of seconds apart. And as usual, everyone rode fast at Warrensburg.
June 20, 2004
Marshfield, Missouri
4th of 11 in A Sportsman
Beware of the practice lap, for it can end your race before it starts. This I almost learned the
hard way at Round 6 of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship. After arriving to beautiful
weather for mid-June in Southwest Missouri, Matt and I went out for our customary practice
lap, where I tried to get around a guy and fell over in a shallow creek. The silencer was
gurgling underwater but by some miracle I kept the engine running. I picked up the bike and
saw a mini water cannon shooting out behind me each time I revved the engine. With wet
packing material inside the silencer, the exhaust note changed dramatically. I caught up to
Matt, who had taken off ahead of me, and drowned out all evidence of his running motor as I
passed by with my ear-splittingly loud silencer. Eventually the packing material dried out and
the KX250 returned to its usual semi-noisy self. The first half of the course was fast, with much
of it following ATV trails. The second half was mostly singletrack, and like last year’s
Marshfield course, some was technically challenging and downright tight for Missouri.
While riding to the starting line I was greeted by #149 Ryan Rohleder, winner of every 200C
race he has entered this year and son of #259 John Rohleder who is affectionately
nicknamed Crazy Jesus by his fans, in part because of his resemblance to the universally
accepted portrayal of Jerusalem’s most famous carpenter and also from a riding style that
begs the question, “How would I ride if I cared little of neither life nor limb?” I lined up on the
inside of the A Sportsman row next to #76 Gary Mittleberg, who along with the rest of my class
left me standing while I two-kicked the bike. I settled in behind #487 Tom Huber and followed
the pack for much of the first lap. Toward the end, I nearly strangled myself by getting a little
too close to a vine while trying to find a good line through a muddy gully and finished the lap
in 6th place.
As with last year, stapled to random trees were paper plates containing various notes of
encouragement, observation, and fact. The rockiest section of creek bed was named in honor
of the notably absent Doug Stone and some of the tighter trails were identified as Spud Cut.
One message confirmed, finally, what for years had been the subject of rumor, speculation,
and innuendo: Todd Corwin does, in fact, blow goats.
On the second lap, #35 Kevin Ruckdeschell caught up to me after taking a first lap spill. He
put on the pressure and I let him by in one of the grass tracks. Kevin put a small gap on me in
the tight trails but then got caught up in a minor bottleneck. I followed him into the muddiest
section of singletrack, where his pace slowed and I shouted some words of encouragement.
He responded by dumping the clutch and roosting me with mud, then pulled over to let me
lead for awhile. We checked through the scoring trailer just a few seconds apart at the end of
the lap.
Kevin stayed close behind on the third lap and then passed me again. I followed closely as we
entered the tight trails in the second half of the course and watched him get slightly crossed
up after clipping a rock. Somehow Kevin avoided bouncing off about 10 large trees. Later on,
he showed me a good line around a rock garden because that’s the helpful guy he is. I had
one opportunity to pass where most riders were taking the long way around a log, but I didn't
react in time to hop over the log and continued to follow Kevin. When we reached the
muddiest trails near the end of the loop, we both went wide left to avoid the worst of the ruts.
He went a little wider left than I did, and I came out ahead where the alternate lines converged
into the main trail.
I completed the third lap in 4th place, where I would remain. Todd Corwin was about a minute
ahead of me in the 3rd spot, but I was only able to close the gap to about 45 seconds. All the
while, I figured Kevin was close behind so I pushed as hard as I could. In the tight trails, I came
up on #122 Nick Bryant, last year’s 6th place finisher in the Junior class and now a 200C
competitor. The narrow course made it difficult to pass. After following him for a short time, he
disappeared around a corner and suddenly came back into sight, hung up on a small log. I
couldn't abort in time to avoid him and smacked into his rear tire. Nick and his bike both went
down. I felt bad about knocking him down and worse about not stopping to help because I was
too preoccupied in keeping ahead of Kevin. As it turned out, Kevin whacked his knee on a
tree root that slowed his pace on the 4th lap and I finished several minutes ahead.
As is often the case, the tight trails at Marshfield were kind to me in the overall results, as I
broke into the top 20 for the first time this year. Slade Morlang edged out Gary Mittleberg to
win the A Sportsman class, while Steve Leivan took yet another overall victory.
