Chadwick, Missouri

The adventures of off-road motorcycle racing can be so much more than what happens inside the woods. The logistics of simply arriving at an event or making it home can sometimes be as compelling as the race itself. Sadly, or amusingly, the Chadwick enduro was one of those races.

In the early days of the new millennium, the Internet was still a bit of a novelty for conducting business. With the Chadwick enduro located four hours from home and an 8:00 a.m. keytime, I splurged for a hotel room the night before. In typical Y2K fashion, I picked up a phone which was attached to a wire and made a call to a Springfield, Missouri motel. A minute or two into the call I sensed I might be talking to a person without the skills to properly reserve rooms. Sure enough, when I arrived at the hotel on Saturday evening, no reservation could be found and I hadn't bothered to ask for a confirmation number. All rooms were occupied not only at that motel, but every other place of lodging in town. A massive youth soccer tournament laid claim to every room within 40 miles of Springfield. I was out of luck.

No worries, I thought. I'll just drive out to the enduro staging area and sleep in my truck. But first, I had to secure a season pass to ride in the Mark Twain National Forest, where the course was located. Internet chatter had pointed me to a general store near Chadwick, where OHV stickers could be purchased. The store was, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. Somehow in this age before GPS and Google Maps, I located the establishment in total darkness. On a Saturday night, the store maintained a certain level of social activity, for these were the years when such activities were had only by gathering in person. The small group of young men congregating at the far end of the store, where the OHV stickers were sold, paused their conversation just long enough to size up the city boy they'd never seen before. I was interesting enough to attract but a few seconds of their attention before they carried on the socializing.

OHV sticker in hand, I followed my printed MapQuest directions to the race site. Like a desert oasis, a dozen orange arrows appeared on trees beside the road, the telltale sign of an off-road motorcycle gathering. The arrows pointed toward a dirt path leading into the woods, where I cautiously guided my pickup truck. The path quickly turned rough and became even more rugged when a different set of colored arrows directed me to a steep downhill path no wider than my truck. Twenty yards in, I decided this was a mistake. Surely I had taken a wrong turn. In the blackness of a Southwest Missouri night, I backed all the way out to the paved road. Something wasn't right and I was not about to figure it out in the woods at night. I drove to the nearby town of Sparta, parked in front of an auto towing service and decided to plant myself there until sunrise.

Under normal circumstances, the confines of a single cab compact pickup truck are less than idea for slumber. Even less ideal is parking such a vehicle in the lot of a towing service on a Saturday night. These tend to be busy times for the tow trucks. Throughout the night I'd fall into an uncomfortable sleep for half an hour, only to be woken by the sound of a large diesel engine. An hour later, the tow truck would return, then head back out to the next recovery. At best, I may have slept for two hours.

At sunrise, I traveled back to the arrows and pulled onto the dirt path. A vehicle ahead veered off toward the same alternative arrows I'd followed ten hours earlier, and like me, quickly put their truck in reverse. These arrows marked the race course. In the morning sun, I could now see the outline of vehicles parked in the woods, just a bit further up the dirt path. In a tired haze, I realized I'd been within 100 yards of a better night's sleep. As it were, I joined the crowd of vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Some riders transported their motorcycles the same as me, in economy pickup trucks, while others brought motorhomes larger than my apartment. Off-road racing, as in so many other areas of life, can be limitless in style and expense.

As for the racing, the BlackJack Enduro Circuit organized the enduro in conjunction with the forest service, who placed restrictions on where the course could be routed. No singletrack was allowed, meaning the enduro would be run exclusively on wide ATV trails. Also, the trails would remain open to all users, whether they were competing or trail riding. A 40-mile loop would be run twice, the first time at an 18 mph speed average and the second at 24 mph.

When my row departed, 18 mph seemed rather tame. The ATV trails were roomy enough for two motorcycles to ride side-by-side, and I was sure I couldn't possibly drop any points on the first loop. Then came the rock ledges. In the early October morning, the ledges remained damp from nighttime dew. Aside from their slickness, many ledges appeared at off-camber sections cut into the sides of hills. I'd never ridden anything like it. Crash after crash, I cursed those ledges until I finally figured out how to keep from slipping and sliding. By that time I'd lost a few points.

Another confounding obstacle was the forest service's unique method of erosion control. Most forest lands use water breaks to preserve trails, and the Chadwick riding area was filled with them. The forest service went a step further by laying interlocking paver bricks on certain parts of the trails. These were just like the ones sold by big box hardware stores, laid out 15 or 20 yards at a time. Most were built into steep hills, where the morning moisture made the pavers as slick as the rock ledges. After sliding my way up and down a half-dozen paver sections and dealing with endless rock ledges, I decided I'd underestimated Chadwick.

Once I settled down and acclimated to the terrain, the first loop passed quickly. The early start to the enduro got us out front of the pleasure riders, for awhile at least. Just before we returned to the staging area, I nearly collided with a pair of ATVs whose riders seemed surprised we met with such intensity. I suspected they missed the message about screaming motorcycles descending on their riding area for a Sunday of racing.

After a short rest and refuel at the staging area, I lined back up to start the second loop. At 24 mph, now I was racing. The fastest riders were more than capable of maintaining this speed average through most of the course, but I had to hammer down through all the timed sections. Shortly into the loop the course ended up hammering my front tire hard enough to pinch the inner tube. The tube quickly deflated, leaving me with an ill-handling motorcycle. I had decided not to strap a spare tube to my front fender, as I'd done at so many other enduros. Slowly I limped my way back to the staging area, turned in my scorecard and packed up for home.

In the coming days, as I told the story of the Chadwick enduro to my friends and family, the hotel debacle was by far the most interesting part of the weekend. The racing, not as much. But sometimes the journey itself is the essence of amateur off-road motorcycle racing. Though I would never return to Chadwick, that essence would be remembered, as would the importance of reservation confirmation numbers.