Lebanon, Missouri

When a person convinces himself to swing a leg over a dirt bike and see how fast he can ride in the woods, the body tends to respond as it would have in the days when human lives often ended in the jaws of large animals. It's fight or flight, and the body attempts to make itself as light as possible. The urge to purge is part of racing, typically setting in about an hour before the event. Bowels beg for release and riders make critical decisions: Do I line up in front of a standard-issue porta-potty, squeeze inside with hopes it's fully stocked with toilet paper and relieve the tension, or do I take my chances for the next few hours?

At Lebanon, I resisted the urge. I was as excited as anyone to begin the 2001 season, and the euphoria clouded my sense to purge. I would regret this. The excitement also influenced my willingness to race a dirt bike in February. I'd done this only once before, at a hare scramble at Kahoka, Missouri in 1996. I'd just purchased a new Suzuki RMX250 and, eager to test the machine in race conditions, I suffered through frigid temperatures, mud and frozen dirt. I wished I'd had the foresight to wait a few more weeks. Lebanon was much the same. Today would bring no frozen ground, just pure Missouri muck. The staging area lay covered in a quagmire of slop and ruts through which no two-wheel-drive vehicle could travel without help. A full-sized John Deere tractor lay in wait for assistance, and it got a workout.

My four-wheel-drive Sonoma helped deliver Matt Sellers and I to the only remaining patch of brown grass in the staging area. This first round of the 2001 Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC) was like all others, with an ATV race in the early hours, followed by a practice session for the motorcycles. For me, practice was essential. Not only could I see the course before I raced it, but the warmup lap usually cured myself of the dreaded arm pump. This malady may be present in other sports but is most prevalent in motorcycling. The concept goes something like this: Gripping handlebars as if one's life is dependent, forearms swell and cause restricted blood flow to the wrists and hands. Holding onto the bars becomes painful. For reasons I don't understand, any arm pump on the practice lap went away come race time. Without a warmup ride, I'd struggle through an hour or more of arm pump. If I paused for even a brief period, it disappeared. The practice lap was my cure.

Around noon, motorcycles gathered in the grassy field where row after row of racers would sprint for the woods. I lined up among the Open B class, thirteen strong, including myself and Matt. We marveled at the mass of racers in the field, rivaling some of the most popular venues on the MHSC circuit. But this was south-central Missouri in February, cool and wet and overcast. First-race euphoria had run rampant throughout the state.

The Pro class departed after a teeth-chattering 15 minutes on the starting line. Years ago I'd learned the hard way that cold days weren't so cool when the racing began. If my gear kept me warm on the starting line, the woods would feel like a sauna. If I was uncomfortably cool on the starting line, I'd feel just right when the green flag dropped. I'd squeezed into my forest green riding jacket, a necessity for this cold-blooded skinny guy. Other riders endured the race with just a jersey or two. Clearly, they came with better natural insulation.

The chill left when we burst off the line, where I entered the first corner in 4th or 5th position. From there I settled into a bit of a rhythm as our class spread itself throughout the course. Rare is the race where the same rider is within my sight for more than a few minutes, and this one had me separated from the lead pack rather quickly. The trails seemed completely different from the Lebanon race I'd attended in 1999. That one, a late-August, hot and dusty affair, seemed punishing with its unforgiving rocks. Today brought a Southern Missouri version of a mud race.

Compared to much of the terrain in Illinois and Indiana, the Lebanon course differed in the depth of the mud. East of the Mississippi, on land most recently covered in massive glaciers, the mud goes down as far as one cares to dig. On a dirt bike, the only limits are how deep the rear tire will churn a trench before the rest of the motorcycle intervenes. The other side of the river in Missouri is a case study for why wise builders put down a layer of rock before pouring concrete pads: Heavy stuff doesn't sink. Lebanon would have no racers lifting the back ends of motorcycles out of ruts. The mud was only there to fill in the gaps between rocks.

Granted, those gaps were tricky. On the first lap, my KTM's front tire slid from one rock to the next, like a pinball about be whacked by a flipper. The wider parts of the course, well broken in by the ATVs, left no surprises. All mud had already been churned into berms and ruts. Mixed in the two-track trails was a healthy dose of tight, twisty singletrack, a rarity for properties sharing ATV and motorcycle events. The Leivan family, longtime supporters of the MHSC, assumed primary duties for course layout, and the Leivans are motorcycle people. This course would be a motorcycle course.

Nature did throw a wrench in their goals, however, when the main route across the creek swelled to a depth of nearly five feet. A clever re-route saved the day, although water everywhere else remained high. The muddy terrain lessened the impact of boulders and sharp edges, making this a much more enjoyable ride than the one I did two years prior. Still, the course was rough. My motorcycle struggled for traction on rock-littered hills. In some of the narrower sections, a single line led us through boulder fields, where the only difference between fast and slow was how hard a person wished to smack the sidewalls of their tires against rocks.

With one lap complete, I suspected I was on pace for four laps. By now I'd raced enough hare scrambles to get a general feel for time, with a wristwatch for confirmation. But today the watch was little help. Even if the display hadn't been covered in layers of mud, the digits were far too small to read while bouncing over the trail. The watch was a throwback to my earliest days of racing, when I was willing to slow to a crawl to determine how much suffering remained. And I certainly did suffer. Just a few years ago, my stamina was good for about an hour. Non-riding friends and family could never understand how it was possible to expend so much energy on a dirt bike. A throttle, 40 horsepower and 12 inches of travel...other than turning the handlebars, what else did the rider need to do? I knew what I needed to do, and it started with riding as much as possible and exercising rigorously. At Lebanon, I'd reached the most prime physical condition of my life and was unconcerned about the four laps. I would ride hard to the end.

The second lap came and went more easily, as the mass of riders cleared a well defined path through the rocks and ruts. A couple hundred dirt bikes will do this on the first lap, and the beauty of a Missouri rock-race is the trails usually don't deteriorate as time goes on. Sometimes they get better, and today was one of those days. The lines through the woods, especially in singletrack, were so clear they almost glowed. Most of the dampness had been cleared away, leaving reasonable traction. I enjoyed this course so much more than the August 1999 event.

Less enjoyable was an urgent need to empty my bladder. When I say urgent, my mind was at a crucial point in which I seriously considered letting loose inside my riding pants. Who would ever know? I was already covered in mud and water. Ignoring the urge, I continued in a distracted state. This was a risk. My worst racing comes with a mind focused on something other than the trail in front of me. It's a 100% commitment, maintaining the level of concentration needed to safely navigate a hare scramble course. There are no time-outs or pit stops or halftime shows or fake-injury pauses. Just two solid hours of avoiding mistakes that can send a person head-first into a tree. Distractions are bad, and I was having a major one.

Bad turned to worse on lap three, when the other kind of purge came on like Mt. St. Helens, circa 1980. Number Two was on its way, like a turtle's head emerging from its shell. Mile upon mile, every rock and tree root and gully upended my bowels. I soldiered on to an uncomfortable lap four, which I believed would be my last. The seat was useless to me now, for I could not make contact without risk of, well, you know. Mercifully, the lap ended. I was done.

Wait...what?

I wasn't done. Near the electronic scoring area, the MHSC helpfully displayed a tripod-mounted whiteboard to show which classes had finished their two hours. I scanned the board and found every other B class listed, except Open B. I had passed through the scoring area about 30 seconds before the two hour mark was complete. Like a stubborn fool, I decided to continue.

A mile or so into my 5th lap, I began thinking. At this point I was not really racing, and the urge to quit was strong. What were the odds of someone else in my class checking into the scoring area behind me, with just enough time to squeeze in a 5th lap? Those were long odds, I thought. Surely I wouldn't lose any class positions by bailing on the course and heading back to the port-a-potty, right?

I decided to bail, but not before pulling off the trail, leaning my bike against a tree and sprinting for a bush or anything else to conceal what I was about to do. In February, there is no leafy growth in the Missouri woods. There is no hiding, but I didn't care. Down went the pants and business was handled. As I strolled back to my bike, feeling a couple pounds lighter, a sweep rider came by and asked if I wanted to continue, to which I replied with a confident "No way!". He directed me to the staging area, where Matt was already changed into street clothes and loaded up for the ride home.

The race results showed those long odds of another Open B rider passing me on the 5th lap weren't as long as I'd thought. Another rider squeaked through the scoring area about 15 seconds before the end of our race. Instead of a possible 4th place finish, I came in 5th, Matt was 6th, and I learned one of the most important lessons of my racing life.