My Racing Reports for 2006

Hi all,

Just thought I'd jot down a little verbage for each one of the events I ride this year. My friend Jeff and I also entered the Best in the West series that is a series within a series so to speak. 3 races in each discipline within our AMA district 37, moto cross, enduro, GP, and desert. That's the plan anyway... So here we go.....

First District 37 desert race of the year was the JackRabbits held at Teagle wash in the Red Mountain area. It had rained out there last week, and there was still some standing water in holes by the side of the road on the way out, and the big dry lake west of Randsburg was, well, not dry. The sand was wet on top from the cool over night temps of 36 degree's, and this promised a relatively dust free race with traction of epic porportions.

Start time was 10:00 am, and there was plenty of people and the temp had quickly come up to about the upper 50's. I pre ran the bomb which was on the west side of Trona road, directly across from the Teagle wash turn off. The bomb was a bit scary actually as the left side of the bomb eventually hooked to the right someways out to arrive at the "bomb", and the right side just went straight or due south. So there was a bit of a possibility of people crossing others lines. I decided to play it really safe, and just cruised up the start even though I got the motor lit right away. As I thought there were many people crossing from left to right. I'd say I was about mid pack with about 150 of my closest friends.

Not long after the single track began as I topped a rise I could see someone down at the bottom of a small hill. It was one of my club members who I don't know and he was banged up pretty badly and was being attended to by a couple of other riders. I quickly hung a U turn and got my bike parked in front of him a few yards up and was directing people away. After everyone had passed I talked with him and he was hurting, and it was apparent he had probably broken some ribs. We made sure he was okay to get up and we walked him to the other side of the course where one of the other fella's had pushed his bike and got him seated there in anticipation of the next wave of riders, the dreaded "nervous novices". The other two riders that were there were from Desert MC and they assured me they would stay there and urged me to continue on, which I eventually did, albeit about 10 minutes behind.

When I got going again I was all by myself and I just decided to ride my own race, like I had a choice, and enjoy the day of sport. The course was not marked very well, and I quickly found out that there was a definite lack of danger markers, and I continued on, on high alert. about ten miles later I came upon another one of my club members who had hit a G out and apparently had broken his wrist from the impact, but, did not go down. I made sure he was okay and could get back on his own, and headed on. About 5 miles after that I came upon another rider who was down, and obviously pretty seriously injured. He was being atttended to by a number of riders, and I agreed to get Rescue 3 (a volunteer outfit that are made up of EMT'S) to come and take care of him. When I got to the next check some 9 miles later, I passed the info on to them and they radioed for R3. At this point I stopped to ahhhem, relieve myself as there was no point in holding out. About this time the novices were coming through in packs, so I waited for just a bit and cheered on my friends youngest. About 6 or 8 miles later I was at the end of the first 33 mile loop and was in the pits. My club filled up the gas tank, and I had my energy drink, and a fresh pair of roll off shod goggles.

I left on loop two with a fresh attitude and figured I'd try and get into a good rythm, which I quickly did. As from the begining, the Berg was running fantastic, and with the great moist ground, just a crack of the throttle and the Berg would raise it's head and flat haul ***. The second loop was more technical and the whoops were more sandy than the first loops more hard packed ones. Soom we were climbing and descending rock infested hills. About this time I was catching novices in droves and some amateurs to boot. The novices were having a rough time in the more technical sections and were flopping over on a regular basis. In fact I was closing quickly on two that were having their own battle, and pretty soon I couldn't see them anymore. I came around a corner, and it looked like the one in front had fallen over in a deep sandy corner, and the guy behind him had fallen trying to avoid him. They were both fine and I just cruised on by. A couple of times I came up on trains of 5 to 8 riders in the single track, these guys were a bit harder to pass one had to be very careful about getting off course and hitting a wash out. Most would invariably just make a mistake and blow a corner, and some had to be passed with a bit more authority.

About 3/4 the way around the second 33 mile loop (different from the first) it got into some pretty difficult hills and rocky terrain. As I mentioned to a friend at the finish, a national Hare & Hound didn't have too much on this second loop. In particular was one 2 miles seciton of steep uphills made up of loose sand and bowling ball sized rocks. I did have a bit of a moment here and fell over once, and was promptly run into. I picked the bike up and hit the button, fed the clutch out and was on my way again. I was pretty winded at the top of this hill but kept going and the trail got easier and I was able to catch my breath quickly. I'd say about 85% of this entire course was whoop de doo's, and square edges.

During the second loop I passed quite a few of my fellow novice and amateur club members, as well as about 30, 40, or maybe more other riders. The finish came at 65 miles and I was glad to see my friend who is not racing right now due to a previous injury at the finish chute. We chatted for a bit, and then I checked the finishers board to see how bad I had done, 26th in class, oh well. But, a bit later I saw at least two guys come through that were in my class, so I wasn't dead last, hurray!

By the afternoon it was T shirt weather, but, quickly cooled off as a couple of hours passed. My friends youngest who I had cheered on earlier had broken down at a check, and one of the club pit crew had gone off to get him. So, several of us waited for him to get back with the young son, as well as a couple of others, to get in. We loaded up in the mean time, and once they all arrived safe and sound we were off towards home by 3:30pm.

Another successful day of sport!!

Race #2!

This was the Desert MC natiional Hare & Hound held in beautiful Lucerne Valley on 1-22-06.

Left the house for the des @ 0430, when I got to the town of Lucerne around 0630 it was a balmy 17 degree's! By the time I got to sign up @ 0715 it was already up to 25, wowzer! a real heat wave.

Made my way over to my club and found my buddies by about 0745 and got the bike unloaded and my fender card taped on.

I left for the 930 start at 915 which was 5 miles away. The expert start was delayed till 0940. There wasn't much wind and there was a wall of dust for sometime before it cleared. It was still pretty cold at this point probably around 35 degree's heading towards a predicted high of 55.

I didn't have a chance to practice the bomb, but, was able to see the large day glo banner some 3 miles away. I talked with a few of my competitors who had run the bomb and they said it was really fast and smooth, as it turns out, the smoothest part of the whole race.

I had made up my mind by midweek that I was just going to go for a trail ride, and go for a finish, as I know how tough these races can be.
Although, I would try and get a good start. Besides, I wanted to make sure I was going to be in good shape for the UHE group ride a week later! I kind of got an inkling of what was to come when I was at sign up and spoke with a DMC club member and told them thanks for throwing the event b/c their races are always fun. He said, "I wonder if you'll still feel that way after the race is over". To which I replied, "hey I know what I'm letting myself in for". LIttle did I know.....

It's 1000 and the banner is up, it's down and the Berg fired instantly off the button and I was away. The bomb was very smooth and very fast, I was probably in the top 15 or 20 at the bomb. The course immediately dropped off into a whooped out wash with rocks, and then wound it's way up into the hard pack, rock imbedded hills. I could see the leaders of my amateur row not too far ahead and pulling away slightly through the very technical terrain. The G outs and small ridges were very unforgiving of even the smallest mistakes, and saw a few riders missing corners and having to negotiate down the hill and try to get back up to the course.

The 1st loop pretty much stayed the same, slow technical trails with lot's of whoop's. It was pretty beat, and I was getting passed by quite a few people, it was hard not to wick it up a bit and try and stay with them, but again, I had a plan and I was going to stick to it.

I got to the pit and my club filled my bikes gas tank, while I drank my energy drink and filled my gas tank. A fresh set of goggles with roll off's and I was on my way to the second "national caliber" second loop. It was quickly into a large boulder area..............

to be continued.........

The boulder area then became filled with deep washes that you were crossing at a right angles, up and down while negotiating boulders on the way down and back up again. This area eventually gave way to a more open area, which then opened into a valley crossing. However, the valley crossing was nothing but deep beach type sand filled with whoop's that eventually led to a slow but steady climb into hills fille with more whoop's. At the end of the rising plane was an uphill made up of the beach type sand, that if you stood in, was half way up your boots. About a foot under the surface of the sand were medium to large rocks. This was especially exciting as when you were trying to make it up the hill, and you found one of these rocks, the rear wheel which was spinning quite fast and digging down almost to swingarm, would momentarily hook up and the send the front up rather briskly. I did not make it on my first try, and for the first time in about 10 or 12 years, I went back down the hill and then around and came up the back side to where the trail was, and then continued on. This was no easy feat either as the trail off to the right was made up of the same terrain, but, not quite as steep. When I crested the back side, it opened into a huge sand bowl where numberous play riders on quads and bikes were riding around. I tried to go up the hill from this point but just dug in the super soft sand. I had to go down the hill where a lot of the play riders were parked and make a full throttle run up the hill in 3rd gear to get to the top.

The trail then headed east up into some very gnarly rocky trails and ridges and then emerged onto a huge down hill made up of more of the soft sand with rocks type of soil. The trail cut across the side of the hill at a very oblique angle, and at the bottom there was an outcropping that had to be negotiated carefully or you were going to be really sad. There were a couple of DMC members there helping people get around the outcropping, and as you might imagine there was a huge line of bikes on the trail. I estimate there was about 60 or 70 people in line behind me when I was at the bottom. Once you got to the bottom, there was a quick left and then a full power climb up a sand hill to a check. Many people were having a hard time with this hill climb, but, I was able to make it witthout drama. Then the hill dropped off in deep sand all the way down and into more of the deep sand whoop's. For a minute there I thought I was on my way to Bamako!!

The trail finally got away from the beach type sand and began winding around through some really rocky gnarly trails going up hills followed by some pretty big down hills. There were numerous lines of people waiting to take their turns at various craggy uphill sections. Many peoples bikes were totally overheating, and at the top of one hill a young guy asked me if I had any water he could have. After finding out he had used all his water in his bike I filled his radiator back up and we both took off together. It was at this point I noticed the shadows growing longer, and the odometer indicated 13.7 miles into a 40 mile loop. I'd say that I had been riding on the second loop for at least an hour at this point, and began to wonder if I was going to need to uncover my headlight to finish!

I finally came to another huge downhill in a canyon that was a spectator section where I saw some my club members enjoying the show, and a couple of them were filling peoples camel backs. I suppose I should mention here that I was walking my bike a good deal in these really bad sections as I did not wish to fall over and make the experience even more grueling. I did fall over a few times throughout the second loop, but, they were mainly just tip overs. One poor guy in a really bad section asked me if I had an "extra" clutch lever for his CRF 450, I wish I would have had one for him he looked hammered. There was also other groups of 2 or 3 riders trying to help one guy get his bike fixed/going to get out this area.

So by this point I'm sure that I have made my point that this was an extremely difficult event, but there's one more gnarly section I want to tell you about. About 5 miles from the finish there was a waterfall section, when I pulled up there, at least 10 people were waiting to get through, there were two paths, and both were blocked by stuck riders. I asked the guy next to me which way the trail went and he showed me the trail off to the right of the waterfall. I told him I was going to pull up a bit and park and go and help this guy on the right who was obviously totally spent. I felt the same, but, I wasn't going to get to the finish by waiting, so I helped this poor guy who just couldn't lift his bike anymore. He was very happy to have me help him get out of his predicament. After I got him up the waterfall, I noticed that the guy I had talked to when I pulled up had gone and helped the other stuck rider on the left side. Once the left side was cleared I piled some rocks at the base of this boulder to fill in a hole that had been dug out to make it easier to get up. Once back on my bike I noticed the guy I had helped came back to help me which was really nice, but, as it turns out I made it up without drama.

There was a final valley crossing to the finish, and the finish was in sight the whole time. But just as you thought you were going to finish, DMC had constructed a spectator "stadium" section on the side of a rocky hill. It reminded me of courses you seen in eruope b/c it was lined on both sides with red tape. I cleaned the section without any problem to the cheers of the spectators (man I felt like a hero even though I was waayyy back) the last little right hand corner 25' from the finish was off camber, and had some loose rocks, just the kind of thing to put you on your face in front of God and everybody! I calmly stepped off my bike used the motor and clutch to get the bike over the rocks, got back on and pulled about 10' forward to take the checkered flag!! Wooooo Hooooo!

All in all, it took me 5 hours and 10 minutes to do the whole race. I averaged 16.9 miles an hour on the second loop, a blistering pace no doubt I have been racing nationals and other races in Lucerne Valley for the last 20 some years, and I would have to say that other than the long point to point races I've ridden, this was the hardest damn race I've ever ridden. I hope that this wasn't the hardest damn race report you've every read, but, this only kind of scratches the surface of the whole race.

P.S. I got home and went to bed that night @ 9:30pm, and at twelve midnight my work called and I had to go into work, and did not get off work until Tuesday morning @ 0330 due to a big wind storm out here.

LOL! Sorry for the long intermission

Okay, race #3 for 2006

This was the Checkers MC check chase held in beautiful Johnson Valley OHV area, otherwise known as Lucerne Valley.

Left for the desert @0506hrs, hardly anyone on the road at this time of the morning, I've always liked driving at this time of day. You've got the road virtually to yourself and you get to watch the sun come up.

After getting on I-15 I see one of those freeway info signs that says crash ahead all lanes blocked at Oak Hill, which is at the top of Cajon Pass. Hmmmm, I wonder how old that info is. Well, no worries I can get off at the 138 and take the long way around, should only take me an extra 30 minutes. When I get to the 138 there is no traffic, so I figure the info is old because traffic would be backed up to here by now if the pass was closed. So I keep going up the road and lo the road is indeed closed about 1 mile before the pass. Traffic started moving very slowly, it ultimately took me an hour and a half to go that mile. Thankfully the checkers extended the start time by 30 minutes, however, this delay effectively put me pretty far behind the 8 ball.

The race was scheduled for 42 miles for the first loop, and 50 miles for the second loop. These would be "checker" miles, so it was going to be a long race. There was also no wind to speak of and the dust was hanging like fog in the 40 degree temps.

The start went off @ 1000hrs with the experts and amatuers starting on the same line with a real smoke bomb to designate the end of the "bomb run". (usually the experts start first, ammies second, novices third etc..) So, this meant that it was going to be a long bomb run as the rule book states that it has to be at least 3 miles when starting the experts and ammies together, and since I was late I didn't have a chance to pre run the bomb, the only part of the course that you can pre run. I got off the line pretty good, and was immediately into total "white out" blinding dust and was putting along in 1st gear. Then, the dust cleared a bit and I found a hole and was able to accelerate hard up to 5th gear and dodging the greasewood bushes on this "virgin" bomb run. The dust was still pretty bad and I couldn't see the smoke bomb,but, I had picked out a land mark on the mountain range some 20 miles away and just kept my heading, and to my relief I passed within 50 of the smoke bomb and was onto the single track.

The flyer had promised no whoops and virgin trails, well knowing the checkers I knew this would be bs, and it wasn't long before I was proven right as we were thrown onto totally beat, rock infested whooped out trails, that within the first 10 miles brought us back by the sign up area. The course continued on these types of trails and then was onto small jeep roads and thought it was to make it passable for the quads. But, soon it was evident that the quads were going to have a tough time with the very narrow and rocky single track, with lots of various sized virgin rock gardens. The first loop was basically what one would expect the second loop of a National Hare & Hound race to be, very tough. Later in the loop we got into some rocky/silty up hills, it was here that I got stuck on a hill right next to a long time fried of mine Jeff on his KTM 450MXC. He went back down the hill to regroup and make another attempt, I was right behind him, circled around him, announced "Yahoo" and punched off. I had to rev the bike pretty hard in second to make it up the loose rocky hill, but, made it without too much drama. A short time later I was riding up a heavily rock imbedded jeep road when I heard a holler off to my right and my friend Jeff was slowly passing me on the outside of a turn. I kept him in sight as the trail went back to loose rocky single track, and was soon closing the gap once again. On an heavily off camber steep down hill right hand sweeper he ran a little wide and I was able to cut inside and cruise away. The loop was 37.6 miles according to the incredibly accurate Huaberg odometer. I did have an interesting problem on the first loop though. I had on my new Sahara pants that I had worn without incident on our Phoenix ride, and I think they shrunk when I washed them b/c my right knee guard kept climbing up my leg, and when I would sit down the shin guard was over my knee cap and pulling down pretty hard. Very uncomfortable to say the least. It was so bad that I had to stop on the course, take off my fanny pack, pull down my pants and push the guard back down, but, it wasn't long before it climbed back up again.

When I got to the pits I had to do the same thing but, had assistance from one of the long time members of the club, Roy Watson. It was at this point that I discovered how tight the cuff on the right leg was and I could see why the guard was getting pulled up. Roy got the guard pulled down below the cuff and we called it good. However, my friend Jeff had come in while I was finishing off my energy drink, and got out of the pit right ahead of me.

The course crossed a big valley, and he is faster than me in the fast stuff, so he was able to extend and slip away from me, but, I could still see his dust...........

It wasn't long before the course was back into the tight stuff with more loose rock gardens, tight little sandwashes with rocks, uphills with rocks of course, and large downhills. It wasn't too long before I caught up to my friend Jeff at an uphill where there were several people stuck. I spoke with Jeff briefly and then let the 550 claw it's way up the hill. Shortly after that the course once again crossed a valley. The conditions were right, I felt good and was able to find a good fast rythm across the valley and when I climbed a mountain on the far side of the valley, I ventured a quick look back and found that I had put a large gap back to the next competitor. The course then wound through some more hills, washes, downhills, etc... I was being careful to conserve fuel as well, short shifting where I could, and not revving the bike too hard in the sand washes. In the beginning of the race I got passed by a few folks, but, as the race wore on I was the one doing the passing. I did trade positions with a couple of different competitors as we capatilized on each others difficulties. The last 1/4 mile to the finish was a pretty good sized downhill, that had one very steep section where I got off and bull dogged it a bit. One guy got past me here but was not in my class so I could care less. At the finish I got my pin and a chance to sit down with my buddy while we waited for his son to finish. They had a finisher board there and I finished 9th in my class, and 19th amateur overall. My friend Jeff ended up 23 bikes back and 12th in class.

I had a couple of tip overs in the race, but, over all it was great day of sport and the bike ran great and handled the same. A quick check of the graduated fuel tank showed approx. 1.5 liters of fuel remaining for the 49.6 mile second loop which works out to 29.1mpg. Which means I had about 11.25 miles to go before empty, so I could have gone roughly 60 miles on that tank of fuel under those conditions. Not too shabby!!

Here's a couple of links to some photo's of last weekends race, I realize that they're not very exciting. But, you will notice the steely eyes of a focused competitor!!


http://photosbygrumpy.morephotos.com/mp ... ntid=33203

http://www.marteesracephotos.com/detail ... &pid=13470

http://www.prismphotos.com/gallery/show ... 491&page=2

This a pic of my friend Jeff showing a bit more zest!

http://photosbygrumpy.morephotos.com/mp ... ntid=33203

This doesn't really count as a race for me, but, it was our club race.

HBMC Dual--Dual European Scrambles = Two one hour races Saturday and Sunday. Our Courses labeled "H" "B" "M" "C" were of various lengths, the course I worked on was the H course and it was 14 miles long. With the exception of the open/250 experts who ran 3 laps, everyone ran two laps. The other courses were from 7 to 10 miles in length.

The big news of the weekend was the weather. It was really windy, with cold temps and snow flurries. When I arrived on Thursday, just ahead of the storm, the wind wasn't too bad, maybe 15 to 20 gusting to 25. It was nice enough in just a long sleeve T shirt, but, when the wind came up you needed a flannel shirt. I arrived at 1 in the afternoon after a nice uneventful drive out, took me about three hours towing my toy hauler. Which isn't bad b/c when I just drive my truck in takes 2:15. I got the bikes unloaded, and my camp set up in about an hour. I brought both my bikes just in case I got a flat, and needed to keep going quickly with course set up. Or, in case one of my buddies needed a ride. My main charge for the weekend, as it has been for the past two years is to set up and run the kids event. This event is for the little guys from 50cc bikes up to 85cc bikes, but, under 11 years of age. This is so they can get out there and pretend like they're mom & dad. I had intended to get over to the area where I had planned on setting up the kids course, but, as I was having a late lunch in the toy hauler the weather began closing in with sustained winds in the 25 to 30 mph range with gusts to the 40's. Luckily we had set up our camp behind a hill, so we weren't getting the full brunt, but the gusts were still strong enough to blowing sand and dust that could be heard pelting the side of the trailer. FUN. Besides the temps had dropped into the low 40's and the sun was setting fast. I figured I'd hit it first thing in the morning.....

The next day dawned cold, windy, and grey. Temps were in the mid 30's with the wind blowing a good 30mph gusting to 45mph. After an all american cholestorol breakfast of 3 eggs, toast, bacon, orange juice and coffee I was ready to head out. I had on my long underwear, plus my full Monarch Pass riding outfit. I had bought this outfit sometime back but had only worn it once before, and today it really paid for itself. Throught out the day there was snow flurries, high winds, and wind chill temps in the single digit range but, I was comfortable throughout the day. I had some help from one of my fellow club members in laying out the kids course. We laid out a course of .8 of a mile for the bigger kids, and cut it in half for the little guys. It took us the balance of the day to get all the ribbon tied, and then headed back to camp and got stakes, and staked the course. We decided to leave stapling the arrows until the next moring as the winds were getting stronger. I got back to camp to find my friend Jeff kickin it by the trailer, he was going to be staying with me until sunday. He told me that we needed to go down to the H course and set up the starting line. So we hoped in my truck and headed on down, and after a bit of confusion, we had the start line set up. As the sun went down so did the temps, but, we were comfortable in the trailer and we had a big dinner of Burgers and beans. Along about 8 pm my friend Guy came over and informed me that he needed to have the bomb return on the H course set up 7am the next morning. And here I thought I was going to be able to loaf around a bit since the kids event wasn't until the next morning. Instead I was up @ 0430 making coffee and getting myself underway. I rounded up the sweep riders for the H course, one of which was my friends oldest son Kevin, a real up and comer. They met me down at the H course start and we headed out to the bomb, which was only about 1/2 mile long and found a good return course back to the start line. While they tied the white bomb return ribbon, I set up the bomb element which was basically several pairs of stakes rapped with pink course ribbon and day glo cards and set up the bomb return signs. All done by 0712. There wasn't too many people down there running the bomb, can't imagine why, it was only about 30 degree's with a solid 30mph wind blowing!!! Back to trailer for some coffee!!!

My helper for the kids course Ron Meza showed a few hours later and we took off to card the kids course and set up the start line there. We had several little snow flurries during this, with one big snow shower during which time we sat in the truck and had a cup of coffee. Usually there are a lot of kids riding around on kids course, but, there was none to be seen.

The kids event was scheduled to go off at 3:00pm, but, due to some time overruns we moved it back to the 3:30. I have a lot of help from other club members in getting the sponsorship dollars and goodies for the kids. This year we had about $3500 in sponsorship, which included a brand new PW 50. After the race we have a raffle as each entrant is given a raffle ticket for after the event. And, usually we have free ice cream for all the kiddies, and big kiddies, but, this year we figured no one would need cooling down!! Unfortunately, our entries were way down this year, usually we have in excess of 70 kids, but, this year we only had 21.

The event is broken down into three classes, 50cc, 65cc, and 85cc. With quads and bikes running together. The littlest guys do a live engine start with the two bigger classes doing a dead engine start. I give a thorough riders meeting before the event and make sure everyone understands what the white flag means and the chequered flad means. I also make sure that all the kids have the required safety gear, helmets, gloves, boots, and goggles. And make sure their helmet straps are done up. One little guy didnt have goggles so we pulled a new pair off the give a way table and fixed him up. When I asked the parents where his goggles were they said they had left them back at camp, I can't imagine letting my kid ride without goggles........... Anyway, I lead them on a one lap sighting lap around the course bring em back and line em up again, and explain how when the banner over there drops you go!! The event took off with out a hitch, and over the next twenty minutes it was a gas watching all the little guys get after it. I ride around the course during the event and help any flop overs, and in the case of one little guy on a PW50 with training wheels, help him get unstuck from the sand. There was another little guy who's ktm 50 fouled a plug and I gave him a ride back to Mom & Dad, poor little guy was just heart broken that his bike had quit. I told him that sometimes even Ricky Charmichael's bike breaks down, and that seemed to help out. Later on this little guy would high five me everytime I walked by. It all worked out great with all the pee wee's having a great time.

After this event, we reconfigured the course to the long version for the bigger kids.

There was only 5 65cc bikes, and I asked without objection if they minded having the 65's and the 85's ride together. We did the parade lap without incident and lined up again. Unfortunately there was a little guy who was afraid of the bigger course, and didn't want to ride. So, we just told him to hang out and he could still be part of the raffe. I explained that it was going to be a dead engine start, and that when the banner dropped you started your bike and took off. This was all working out good, and when I finished my check of the competitors and pointed to the banner, one little hot shoe took off. Thankfully the banner folks were able to get him stopped and back to the line, man, everyone was laughing their butts off. I mean you should see the look on these little guys faces, their eyes are as big as dollars!!! Okay, try it again, and this time, the banner drops and they're off!!! There are some really fast kids in these events and this time the fastes was a kid on a Kawasaki 65 who was lapping the field with regularity throughout the 20 minute event. Remember the false starter? Well he took a big tumble on the back side of the course, and people were right there to help him, he was heard to say, oh my back hurts, what place am I in? And then jumped back on his bike and off he went for the rest of the event!

By the finish, all the parents are freezzing the 30 degree windy conditions. It even looked like for a while we were going to have snow showers during the raffle, but, we were spared. During the raffle, every single kid gets his number called and gets a prize, plus a trophy for participating, even our little scared guy got a trophy. Since there was so many prizes and so few competitiors, we had to make two runs through the raffle numbers to try and give away all the prizes. Even then we had prizes left over and I was just thowing them to the crowd, talk about fun! Our prizes this year included: video games, action figure dirt bikes, remote control atv's, helmets, gloves, goggles, gift certificates to temecula motor sports, shirs, hats, socks, chest protectors, and other various toys. And at the end, we finally raffled off the PW50 courtesy of Malcolm Smith motor sports. Remember the kid on the PW 50 with the training wheels? Well I'll be darned if he wasn't the one who won the PW50! Man, as soon as that was done everybody cleared out in a hurry!! It was a great event and my thanks to all that helped out.

Back at camp that night........... I'll have to finish later got to go and cheer on the girl friend and her daughter at the LA Marathon!!

Okay, where was I..... Oh yeah back at camp that night I was getting ready to get out of my clothes and take a nice hot shower. Knock, Knock, on the door, it's my friend Tim who's the club president this year. Hey man, the club meeting is at 7:00pm, that's in 20 minutes. So, I put my boots back on and cracked a beer, and took a swiz off of my flask filled with Crown Royal, and off to the meeting.

The wind hadn't died down at all and was coming in gusts from varying directions. There was a good fire burning, but, if you weren't in the front row it was still cold. About this time last years prez came by with some kind of tequila liquor called tequila rose. It looked like baileys, but, didn't taste like it, and it didn't taste like tequila either. It was good however. Meeting was called to order and the usualy club meeting stuff was talked about, all the while I'm feeling a pretty good buzz coming on. And now I'm getting tired of looking at the back of everybody's head, and getting nothing from the fire except smoke and sparks. So I climb up on the 2 cord wood pile where I can see and hear everyone. A subject came up that I felt needed clarifying so as any person with a good buzz would do I start pontificating from my wood pile pulpit about the subject matter at hand (the subject was is really not important, and it would take too long to write it all out). One of my newer riding buddies commented to a long time friend "I've never seen Dale like this before". To which my long time friend responded "He's had a little to drink, just let him go and enjoy the show". Now you have to understand, it's very seldom that I have a few drinks, so had you been there I'm sure you would have found it as entertaining as my friends did. Then it was back to the trailer for some dinner and a good nights sleep. While we were eating dinner at about 9:00, we noticed that it had started snowing, pretty soon it was flat out blizzard conditions. This lasted for about an hour, and it left a nice dusting of snow on the bikes, vehicles, and the ground.

In the morning I looked outside to see that most of the snow was still there, but, the wind had taken some of it overnight. First thing my friend Guy comes by at around 6:00 and tells me that the people who were doing the starts on the H course have left, and he's wondering if I can do the starts for the H course. Sure I said. That left enough time to make a pot of coffee and eat a bowl of cereal, grab the banner, pencil and paper, get down to the start to be set up before the 8:00 am start. I grabbed my buddies girl friend, his daughter and her boyfriend to come and help with writing down the riders numbers on the line and check for registration, spark arrestors, and sound check. It was bitterly cold as the temp was still in the high 20's, with a solid 20mph wind blowing with a few gusts to 30mph. It never got above 34 all day. We got the first start off at 8:10, the second race off at 9:40, the third at 11:10, and the last at 12:40.

After taking care of the starts on the H course I went back for a sandwich and some coffee. Then off to the kids course to finish cleaning up. I spent about an hour picking up the rest of the stakes, bits and pieces of ribbon, trash left behind from the event, and other trash that had been laying around for sometime. I got all the stakes and stuff back to race central, stripped the stakes and put away, then packed up all the trash that I would haul out myself.

I finally got back to my trailer and was doing a little straightening up around outside, when my friend Guy came by and wanted to know if I could help him go and check a section of the H course to make sure all the ribbon and stakes had been taken care of. I got my riding gear on and headed out with Guy about 3:30 or so. We got over to the section that we needed to check riding backwards on the course (long after all the races were over of course) from check 3 to check 2. We came upon a lone club member moving along pulling ribbon. I still don't know how this guy ended up out there by himself, but, we joined him in pulling all of the ribbon from check 3 back to check 2. Apparently the people at check 3 didn't feel the need to do what they were supposed to do. This took us the better part of 2 hours to complete, and then we rode the rest of the 14 mile loop backwards to camp.

We got back to camp just as the sun was setting behind the hills and dumped off all the ribbon we had pulled. I got back to my trailer and helped my friends who were leaving that night load up the rest of their stuff and bid them a safe drive home. Before they left they helped me get my bikes in the garage of my toy hauler. The light was fading fast and the temp was falling just as fast. I made sure that everything was secure and headed in for the night, flipped on the heater, and was looking forward to a hot shower and meal. The hot shower was grand, and my chili cheese dog dinner was nervana. I fired up the VCR and settled in to watch last years F-1 event from the Hungaroring.

I'm not sure how many laps I made it into the race, but, when I woke up it was just about over. That was the first time I fell asleep on the couch in my trailer, man, that took a while to get broken in!!

The next morning I woke up with the birds as usual and made an all american cholestorol breakfast with coffee and juice and ventured outside. If was beautiful, no wind, about 45, and clear blue skies. The mountains to the south were covered with snow, and there was only a couple of folks still around.

I finished up loading and hitching up and cruised over to a couple of my friends camp and hung out and had a cup of coffee. We shared a few stories of the weekend as our duties had kept us from talking throughout the weekend. We said our good bye's and I was on my way for an uneventful trip home.

Man, I can't believe it's May and I'm posting my first race report since our club race which kind of doesn't count.......

Last weekend was the VCMC (ventura county motorcycle club) qualifier at Gorman SVRA. My friend Tim, his son Kevin and I took part in the event mainly for a tune up for our trek to the Idaho City qualifier coming up in another week. The forcast was for showers and thundershowers, with the chance of rain increasing throughout the day.

Sign up was not a problem, but, tech was a joke. As per normal government operations, there were 4 people do the job of two. And by that I mean that there was 4 govt employee's with one, count'em, one sound testing meter. Normally when D 37 holds an event there are at least two teams doing sound test, and as has been agreed by all parties, only odd numbers get tested during odd months, and evens during evens. But here, all were being tested. It only took me about an hour waiting in line to get tested. Apparently the night before, people had been waiting in line for a hour and a half when quitting time for the state employee's arrived and they shut down sound test. As you can imagine there were a lot of "happy campers". As a caveat, those who had been waiting in line were given a colored dot or something so that they could go to the front of the line the next morning.

We got our times for the sheet posted at sign up for the times we needed to be at our route checks, and I wrote them down on a piece of duct tape affixed to my handle bar clamp pad. About the time I was getting dressed the rain started coming down in earnest, but, thankfully it was showery in nature and was gone in a few minutes. I was hoping that we would get the majority fo the event completed before the rain really started coming down as most of the Gorman SVRA is blue groove clay, and when wet is extremely slippery, kind of like riding on ice. It had rained a bit over night but, again was showery in nature and there really wasn't any mud to speak of just tacky clay.

Our start minute came and we were off on the course, about 3 or 4 miles in was the first special. I let the others, my friends son the hot shoe, my friend, and a young kid go ahead of me in the 15 second intervals in the special. I quickly caught the young guy when he had tipped over in a corner and cruised on to the end of the special. Throughout the rest of the special tests during the day I was passed by the Dotson brothers, Chilly White, Brent Harden, and a few other notables who's names escape me at the present. Everyone was really cool about letting people pass, both ways.

We had started the day with the assumption that there would be a 30 minute break in between the 1st and 2cnd loops. As it turns out, for me, and I was early to all my route checks and passed through them on my minute, I had 7 minutes to gas up, get a clean pair of goggles, and grab a quick snack before we had to go. My friend and his son, who had got back to the pit area a couple of minutes before had their gear off and were walking around getting ready to eat a sandwich. It was kind of funny watching them scramble when I told them we only had 6 minutes before we had to be at the start of loop two.

We got to the start of loop two 30 seconds into our minute and were rearing to go. But, unfortunately, VCMC was all screwed up and didn't seem to care that we were there slightly late and ready to get going. After applying increasing amounts of pressure, and increasing the volume of my voice alerting these "folks" to the fact that they were making us late did they realize that they were blowing it. Their reasoning was, It's a special, to which I replied is the whole second loop a special? and they said no. I then informed them that we had route checks that we had to be at a pre determined time, a time set by the club they were in. We were finally let go, and that was probably the fastest special I rode the whole day!!

This second loop took us up into the Las Padres national forest on trails that I have ridden many times in the past. The soil was just damp enough to keep the dust down, make the tracition good. There were two route checks on the second loop, the first one we were early and were waiting for our minute to go through. Unfortunately the second route check was after the end of the second to last special test and I was 9 minutes late.

The total course length was 77.8 miles, and I averaged about 23 mph, with a max speed of 69mph. We had a good time and it was a great primer for the Idaho City qualifer next weekend. I'm off to put on a fresh rear tire and the finishing touches to my bike. I'll write up a full report for the Idaho trip when I get back!!

Unfortunately I'm posting my ride report for the Idaho City Qualifier from home on the first day of the event before it even begins.

I only made it about 4 hours into my 20 hour drive before the trans in my truck failed at the top of Halloran Summit, otherwise known as Baker grade. I did manage to limp it in to state line it was 10 hours later before I had a tow company deliver my toy hauler to the "Oasis RV park". Ford had come and got my truck earlier.

I had recently had my truck into the Ford dealership for some warranty work on my 10 month old truck, and according to them there were some computer trouble codes regarding my transmission. Apparently Ford wants any transmission with these error codes on low mileage vehicles removed and sent back for analysis. So a "factory rebuilt" trans was installed in my truck. I had about 500 miles on this trans before I left on my trip. The breakdown occurred last tuesday, and I just got home yesterday. I had to hire a 5th wheel delivery company to tow my toy hauler home, and I flew home from Vegas.

As it turns out, the Ford dealership in Vegas notified me that the dealership in Pasadena that replaced my trans with an "E" series instead of a "F" series and that's why it failed.

I did speak with Cheeseberger and he is there and ready to go. We talked a bit about strategy, and went over the fundamentals of the Qualifier format. I wished him the best of luck and he said he would give me a call this evening.

This is the first time in my 27 years of driving that I have broken down and not been able to continue. In fact, it's the first time in my 43 years that this kind of thing has happened to me. Oh well, guess it's really not my fault, and I'm going to make sure that Ford picks up the tab for all my expenses, and my lost entry fee's etc...

Thanks Bob & Joe,

I wasn't sure what the limit for small claims was anymore. I've never sued anybody in my life, but, if Ford doesn't pay up for my expenses then I'll be seeing them in court.

Hopefully, it won't go that way and they'll just pay up for my out of pocket expenses.

I hope ol cheeseberger is having a good go of it! If he calls I'll post something here.

Thanks Joe,

That's some good info. On Friday the regional managers office called to let me know that they were now involved, so it kind of sounds like corporate is getting involved. Again, I am hopeful that it won't come to a litigous end.

Thanks again for the great info, that's not something that I would have thought of.

Hopefully the truck will be back in my possesion by the end of the week.