Kingman, Indiana

Anytime the skies let loose with three inches of rain in the days leading up to a race, my state of mind changes a bit. Those pristine days of moist dirt and primo traction come with few worries. Throw in mud, and I switch to edgy. The hare scramble near Kingman, Indiana had me mentally preparing for the bottomless black muck I know to expect from wet race courses like this one. The hills and creeks and gullies, normally quick work in dry conditions, would now be a continuous set of obstacles.

The Kingman property, less than an hour from my parent's home, was another chance to hone my mud riding skills on the other side of the Illinois border. While walking the course, the terrain reminded me a wooded property back home, a farm rented by my father, where I learned how to get serious about racing in the woods. Most of the trails were developed out of pasture land left to nature several decades ago, when grain farming took over as the farmer's moneymaker. The narrow trails were filled with weeds and grass and the kind of underbrush I always fought at the old Keen woods in late spring and early summer, when I lived closer to home and practiced there on weekends. In a couple of months, seven-foot ragweed would take over large areas of this property.

Curiously, the course was marked not with arrows, but with white paper plates stapled to trees. A can of spray paint had been used to highlight the plates. Some of the plates had already come down as the organizers rerouted parts of the course. An off-camber section, tricky enough in dry conditions, was removed because of its slippery, one-line option. A single bobbling motorcycle could create a logjam of riders with nothing to do but wait.

I finished walking as much of the course as I cared, while the minibike racers completed a parade lap for their upcoming competition. After the main group passed by, I suddenly heard a cry for help from one of the riders, over and over again, so desperate that it seemed he must have been trapped under his minibike. I located the small person, who had lost momentum on the way up a hill and couldn't get started for a redo. A full-sized sweep rider came upon the scene and together we helped him conquer the hill. I then came across another tiny human, even smaller than the first one, who had fallen over and couldn't get his bike started. I kicked over the engine again and again without success, and then his dad found us and started the bike with one kick...after he disengaged the kill switch.

Back at the truck, I geared up just in time for another rain shower. Riders lined up in a field of wet grass and tested for traction with practice starts. Their results were as mixed as the plumes of brown gunk shooting from behind their rear wheels. My philosophy on wet starting lines is to pick a spot and stay put, which is exactly what I did. My goggles were already showing signs of fog and my forearms were cool from the damp jersey. I wanted this race to get going.

It did, after the customary delays in assembling more than 100 motorcycles in a flock of classes and rows. Another normal delay was the plea from race officials to silence the 100 or so engines, all in various warm-up states, so they could communicate important information such as why in the world they chose to mark the course with paper plates. When the riders finally settled down and the green flag came out, I surprised myself with a quick jump off the starting line. But all was lost when two riders ahead of me tangled, crashed, and set me back about 10 positions. Five minutes later we arrived at what seemed the main checkpoint, but course workers pointed us back to the starting area. The race was to be restarted because several riders missed a paper plate and many others followed, including me. What should have been a 12 minute lap had been cut in half. More importantly, riders were meeting each other head-on inside the woods, so for safety reasons a wise decision was made to start over. Some of the riders were none too happy, particularly one guy who went ballistic with a tirade of profanity aimed toward course workers. Had those words been directed at me, I would have sent the man home.

In fairness to the riders, the club probably should have recognized that paper plates aren't especially ideal for those accustomed to scanning the trail for arrows. They also put themselves in a dilemma of running two simultaneous races in the morning (minis and ATVs) on separate courses, and then joining them for the afternoon motorcycle race. Trail link-ups can be a tricky thing.

After a lengthy delay, the race was restarted and reduced from two hours to 90 minutes. I didn't quite duplicate my good start from earlier, but then nobody crashed in front of me, so I was in about the same mid-pack position when I completed my first lap. The creek crossings were predictably nasty and a couple of climbs out a ravines were challenging, but otherwise the course was fairly rideable. Many onlookers assisted near the creeks, pulling and tugging and lifting motorcycles through deep ruts.

The trails quickly became a series of ruts, and it was up to the riders to choose which one to follow. Sometimes what seemed the perfect rut, meaning one in which the bottom is visible and no more than half a foot deep, turned ugly when a random tree root crossed through. Despite the best efforts of woods racers, roots rarely move, but the soil around them always does. They tend to blend in with the color of the mud, leading to surprises such as an unexpected jolt of the handlebars or a ejector-like butt-slap from the seat. The exceptional riders who can remain standing through these ruts don't often experience the ejector-seat effect. Riders such as myself, who prefer to remain attached to the seat, usually have a different experience.

A few laps into the race, my goggles fogged up and I pulled them down under my helmet. There is risk from this, of course, given the narrow and leafy trails. I discovered just how dangerous this can be when a tree branch poked my face, just under my right eye. With goggles, I wouldn't have felt a thing. Without goggles, it stung a bit. After the race I glanced in my truck's side mirror and saw a wound like what Brad Pitt inflicted on his sparring mates in the Fight Club movie. I walked over to the onsite ambulance to see if the EMT's had anything useful to clean and sterilize the cut. I asked them questions like "Do I need stitches?" and "Are you old enough to drive this ambulance?" and the best they could do was give me a tiny alcohol pad and a burrito-sized bandage. I could have wrapped my entire face in the bandage and cleaned a small pimple with the alcohol pad. Instead, I squeezed out some leftover water from my CamelBak onto an old Dairy Queen napkin from the glove box and cleaned it up real good.

A few days later I found myself with a black eye, my first ever. My non-riding friends and coworkers soon began questioning if dirt bike racing was actually a cover for a Fight Club membership. I let them run with the Fight Club theory for a short time, then realized dirt bike racing was way more cool. From then on, I proudly insisted my wounds were racing induced.

And there would be more.