Roselawn, Indiana

Racing memories are made in many different ways. Some races stand out for their successes and others for their failures. The Summer Bummer enduro near Roselawn, Indiana was the kind of epic fail the witnesses would continue to discuss not only years later, but for decades afterwards. Such are my abilities, to entertain others by doing silly things.

It began the same as any other race. I prepped my KTM with a fresh, meaty Michelin S-12 for the Roselawn sugar sand. I replaced the dirty transmission oil with clean Mobil-1 synthetic. I checked the tires for proper air pressure in soft, rock-free terrain. I cleaned the air filter and checked for loose bolts and worn bearings. I adjusted the chain tension.

Did I mention the air filter?

In addition to the bike prep, I'd once again communicated with Kankakee native Ryan Baker and arranged to ride on the same row. He planned to attend the Summer Bummer with Jeff Snedecor, another Kankakee-area dirt biker. Both gentlemen were relatively new enduro competitors, still trying to master the arcane timekeeping aspect of this form of racing. We would all ride together and my job was to keep us on time, with my highly untechnical roll chart and a pair of five-dollar Walmart digital clocks (because I would be a fool to place all my reliance on a single Walmart digital clock). I never thought of myself as having sales skills, but somehow I convinced Ryan and Jeff that I could do this well.

Little did the Kankakee boys know, there are plenty of things I do poorly, starting with motorcycle maintenance. Ten minutes before our departure time, I decided to warm up the engine of my KTM 300EXC. Its rock-solid internal combustion had never let me down, so why bother firing up the engine anytime sooner? As expected, the bike fired up on the first kick. Three seconds later, the engine died. I put my right leg to work, kicking over the engine again and again, with no success. I confirmed the carburetor was receiving fuel. I frantically changed the spark plug.

The engine refused.

Two guys parked next to me offered encouragement and another spark plug, which I installed in even greater panic. Still no luck. Ryan and Jeff could wait no longer, so they departed without me. There I stood, four hours from home, unable to race. I felt ill.

Then a thought occurred. These were the days when I felt too poor to buy multiple air filters and always have a freshly oiled spare ready to install after pulling out the dirty one. The process was usually a 24-hour affair, where I cleaned the filter, allowed it to dry overnight, and then oiled and reinstalled it the next day. To keep foreign objects out of the carb during this time, I would stuff the intake side with a couple of paper towels.

And wouldn't you know it, those paper towels were wedged between the carb and the air filter. As sick as I felt up to this point, nothing compared to the nausea of owning up to the most boneheaded maintenance mistake of my life. The pleasant men parked next to me were scheduled to depart on a much later row, allowing ample time to to witness the kickstarting and the spark plugs and the paper towels and a look of utter disgust molded to my face. I have little doubt they laughed all the way from the starting line, all throughout the entire enduro course and probably the whole way back to their home state of Michigan, spreading the word far and wide about that idiot from St. Louis.

By now I was 10 minutes past my starting time, which took me out of contention for any sort of trophy. For all practical purposes, this would be a trail ride. I'd simply enjoy the sand and tightly spaced trees and complete the course in leisurely fashion. What else could possibly go wrong?

Oh John, you sweet, poor excuse for a mechanic.

After the first timed section, an 8-mile blitz through the Sun Aura nudist club grounds, we were given a long rest period at the staging area. With my KTM on the bike stand, I noticed the steering head was loose. Out came the tools and, once again, I departed late. Fortunately, the next timed section was placed several miles away, with plenty of paved roads to make up some time. I left my truck 5 minutes behind schedule but recaptured 4 minutes speeding along the pavement.

As I approached the starting checkpoint, I could make out Ryan and Jeff heading the opposite direction down a dirt road. This was odd. They had just emerged from the woods after completing the entire timed section. I was 10 minutes behind them. Why were they so far ahead?

The mystery was solved when I caught up to them on a paved road section leading to the next set of trails. Without their master timekeeper as a guide, they'd unknowingly entered the previous woods section early, and a hidden checkpoint just inside the dense forest caught them 8 minutes ahead of schedule. Per enduro rules, early arrival is penalized much more severely than a late check-in, and the math added up to 37 points worth of punishment for Jeff and Ryan. My airbox and steering head issues put me about 20 minutes late, costing me 20 points. Despite my shoddy bike maintenance, my score was still better than theirs. It mattered little, though. I still had to admit I'd left paper towels in the airbox, which trumps all timekeeping blunders by a country mile.

Back on the course, the route sheet resets put us on schedule for the next timed section. In our trio of current and former Kankakeans, I managed to keep Jeff and Ryan from entering the woods early. Our main duty today was clearing the dense trail for riders behind us. With an early row and this being Roselawn in August, the well-established undergrowth was getting personal. Bushes and tall weeds clouded my vision, slapping across my goggles as if they knew I was coming. My arms were scraped from the thousands of small trees and brambles of all shapes and sizes, each attempting to reach out and grab on. In some areas the club members had apparently created the trail with machetes, hacking a path just wide enough for a grown man to squeeze through.

The Summer Bummer course was laid out in its customary fashion, starting and ending at the woods surrounding the staging area. In between were several sections linked across the countryside by backroads. In these sections, Jeff would often lead, as he could cut through the narrow woods like a 12-point buck in November, followed by me and Ryan. Occasionally Jeff would defer the lead position to me, as he did at the woods section after a remote gas stop. We had lost Ryan just before this rest opportunity, after he struggled through a difficult part of the trail.

Jeff and I refueled at the gas stop and speculated as to what happened to Ryan. With time running out, we did what all good buddies do when the woods are calling: We left Ryan to fend for himself. Payback came quickly for me. I smacked my arm against a tree so hard I was sure it had broken. I pulled over to let Jeff pass by and limped along in first gear for what seemed an eternity. Eventually the timed section ended with the glorious sight of a check crew, who provided directions on how to ride back to the staging area. I cruised through smooth country roads, wrangled my motorcycle into my truck and began the long drive home.

The next day, I stopped by my friendly doctor, with whom I would soon be exchanging Christmas cards, and learned that only my spirit had been broken at the Summer Bummer. My arm suffered a deep bruise and I would recover just fine.

Epilogue:

During my years in St. Louis, as I focused more on racing in Missouri and Southern Illinois, I would lose touch with Jeff and Ryan. Ryan eventually moved out of state, but Jeff remained in the Kankakee area. When I moved back to Illinois in 2005, we reconnected at a District 17 hare scramble. He would remind me regularly about the "rag in the airbox" incident. On the 20th anniversary of the 2000 edition of the Summer Bummer, Jeff provided his own recap of that day:

"That was my 2nd enduro. Story goes, Tom, me and my buddy had no idea what we were doing and this 'know it all' parked next to us said he would show us the ropes. We talked before the race and I was glad he was helping us. Now, five minutes before start his bike won't start. So after me and Ryan look like buttholes at the starting line and get to probably the 2nd reset, here comes John. Says 'I left a rag in my air box'. Been a joke with us ever since."​