Belleville, Illinois

The coal mining region across the river from St. Louis was well established with my grandfather's generation, where black gold fueled not just furnaces, but economies. To the benefit of off-roading enthusiasts, some of the strip-mined land was left to nature after the steam shovels departed. Dirt bike lovers near Belleville pooled their resources in the 1960s and bought an old mine for the express purpose of fun. Since then, the Belleville Enduro Team ("BET") has served its mission well, hosting another of what had to have been dozens of hare scrambles since their inception.

This one, another early March affair, was special. The weather gods gifted the racers with pure joy in the form of pleasant temperatures and a dry course. This was truly once-a-decade conditions. I took advantage of this and arrived early, signed up for Open B and spent the next 90 minutes walking the entire 4.5-mile course. In Illinois, practice laps are uncommon, so the visual intel was worth the exercise. One of the most interesting features of the course lay on the southeast corner of the club grounds. Near a small lake, a trail had been hand-carved into a high bluff overlooking the water. As I carefully planted my feet over this mountain goat trail, I noticed another trail directly below, running just above the water level. On a normal day in March, the kind which brings damp and slippery trails, the lower trail might still be ridable, but that upper trail would have been off limits. Not today, though. This was a once-in-a-decade course.

The BET club had also built a makeshift levee directly through the center of another lake, dumping enough dirt into the water to make a clear path from one side to another. The trail dropped 30 feet straight down onto the levee, then scaled a steep hill leading up and out of the lake. The morning ATV race was underway when I spotted this tricky obstacle. Their course allowed an easier but longer alternate route up the hill, and most didn't dare try the short way.

A grass track was another new feature this year, laid out parallel to Illinois Route 158 on the north side of the property. The sight of grass and yellow caution tape and wooden stakes left me with the same excitement as the running portion of a triathlon, if I were ever to compete in such an event (which is about as likely as Donald Trump being elected President of the United States). I'm sure I'd enjoy the swim and bike, then die a little inside when it came time to lace up my shoes. The same feeling of dread fell over me at the grass track. Despite a wealth of magazine articles and online chatter, freely given for my mastery of grass track techniques, more than two decades would pass before I had access to a property on which I could actually practice riding a dirt bike on grass. With such little experience, I could safely predict this area would be my slowest on the course.

Regardless, the club had laid out an excellent mix of narrow and wide trails, with a little something for everyone, including Missouri's own Matt Sellers, the man who makes it rain just by showing up. We became the sole competitors in the Open B class. At these types of races, so close to the state border, I was simply baffled by the small turnout from the Land of Rocks. The fear of bottomless mud and slippery clay is legit for anyone unaccustomed to these conditions, but for the love of God, today was perfect riding. Even Matt, a nearly lifelong native of lead country, had figured out that when the trails are good in Illinois, you cross the river. Thankfully, he left his weather algorithm on the Missouri side.

The Open B starting line was comingled with its usual mix of other B classes, including one dedicated to four-strokes. I admired the men who could lug those heavy beasts through tight woods, then declare the extra 50 pounds of valves and cams and mammoth mufflers "not noticeable". One of these racers brought a 1980s Honda XR, the air cooled classic which would run for a couple decades with a handful of oil changes. I had seen a few of these at past races, usually piloted by men in jeans and steel-toed work boots, but today's XR aficionado wore a full set of modern gear.

The green flag eventually waved our class into a flurry of leg extensions, throttle twisting and clutch dragging. The course began on the club's motocross track, where we accelerated for all of 100 feet before turning sharply into the path of a double jump. As sure as Popes are Catholic, I singled the doubles and then came in hot at a 180-degree turn, where I braked late and bumped Matt's rear tire to slow my momentum. Narrowly avoiding a crash, I followed him as we made our way toward the woods.

When only one other racer enters your class, and that person is someone you know well, it's pretty simple to identify where you stand. Matt's helmet and riding gear and the plastic color-combo on his KTM were all familiar and easy to track. On the first lap I kept him in my sights until we passed through a wide section where the ATV route diverged slightly from the motorcycle arrows. The flow of the ATV trail seemed most natural, and many of the riders out front took off down the ATV route. I'd seen this fork in the trail on my morning walk and veered off into the singletrack, leaving most of our row of riders behind, including Matt. These things happen when the motorcycle and ATV courses are laid out slightly differently, and I was lucky to see the bike course arrows in time.

The two trickiest obstacles on the course, the lake levee and high goat trail, both challenged my balance. The goat trail simply had no room for error. A single misstep would have a rider tumbling into the lake, but not before smashing across the trail below. Over at the levee, shaky handlebars could send a motorcycle directly into dark water, the depth of which only an unfortunate few would ever know. I chose my lines carefully through both sections and arrived safely at the scoring barrels, with a 15-minute lap time.

The next laps passed by with a feeling of predictability, which is uncommon in the soft soils of Illinois. Wet conditions, almost a given for spring racing in the Land of Lincoln, tend to force riders into alternate routes through muddy areas, with little warning. The lines change and change again, as one rider finds himself stuck in a rut and others fan out around him. Some lines hold up to the beating of hundreds of knobby tires searching for traction, while others deteriorate to the point of being unpassable. The great challenge for riders is predicting which one will hold up, at least long enough to squeeze through one last time before the rut sucks the next motorcycle down to its foot pegs.

I had no such worries on the BET club grounds. Most lines never became the deep ruts common of wet races. On the other hand, this place had been a strip mine. The multiple series of 20-foot ridges had left me unconscious just two years prior, and I hadn't forgotten that I still didn't remember how it happened. About halfway through the race, the course reminded me of its danger when I dropped down into the lake levee and witnessed the classic Honda XR on its side, dangling near the water. The rider either lost control on the way down or didn't successfully make the climb out. Either way, with the "not noticeable" girth of the XR, he wasn't getting out of there without help.

On the final lap I caught up with Matt on the grass track. I hadn't seen him since our trails diverged early in the race, so at first I thought maybe I was lapping him. This didn't seem possible, with our similar speeds in the woods. We raced each other through the grass track and eventually I made a pass. By that time my KTM finally began objecting to my pipe-bashing style, with a distinct change in the tune of the engine. The small end of the pipe began separating from the cylinder head. Too many run-ins with rocks had misaligned the pipe to the point that it wouldn't seat properly over the cylinder's exhaust port, and the song of the engine changed from a lovely two-stroke serenade to that of a ghastly horror-film soundtrack. I knew this was a potential problem several races ago. A few band-aid fixes with silicone sealant had stretched the pipe's life, but its time was now up and everyone within a quarter-mile was aware. The power at low RPMs fell to the level of an 80cc minibike, and I kept the throttle twisted open as much as possible. This only attracted more attention. I so revved the engine on that final lap that the main tank ran out of fuel. I switched to reserve and finished the race.

They say a win is a win, even if only a battle for bragging rights between two friends. But on this day at Belleville, anyone who swung a leg over a dirt bike was victorious.