Today's race was a reminder that the perils of our sport can reach anyone, whether a beginner or an experienced racer. On the practice lap, one of the good guys of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship, Everett Shinault, was seriously injured after his throttle stuck open. He suffered broken ribs and internal injuries. I did not know Everett personally, but those who did described him as a smooth, careful racer and a consistent top-5 finisher in the Senior class. We all hoped to see Everett back on the trail soon.
The Steelville round of the MHSC is a familiar one, set in a valley which requires a successful creek crossing just to arrive at the staging area. The property is large and the course is usually one of the longest in the Missouri series. Native rocks are tire-shredders, unlike any other, and I'd learned this from my new status as a regular on the MHSC circuit. I knew better, after racing here twice before, than to sacrifice a new rear tire for the event. I took an easy practice lap, saving my square-edged knobbies for the racing.
As medics attended to Everett Shinault, the race was delayed and the tone of the starting line was subdued. Word of his injuries had spread throughout the staging area, but once the Pro class departed, competitive juices flowed freely, with all eyes and minds set on the first corner. Back in the Open B class, my mind fell into its usual lazy state, where my body reacted in slow motion to the green flag. It seemed my right leg wouldn't budge until the flag person completed his full range of motion. While the other, quicker reactors of our group threw their legs down on kick starters the instant they sensed movement from the flag, my brain felt the need to see the flag waved to completion. Only then would it instruct my leg to move.
All this considered, I felt fine meeting the first turn in the top half of my class. After all, the weather was perfect, course conditions were outstanding and a great deal of racing lie ahead. Into the woods we charged through wide trails broken in by ATVs in their morning race. Around each corner, my rear tire latched onto handfuls of jagged rocks while the front tire skated sketchily. The ATVs had carved high berms around the outsides of most of these curves. The front tire would slide a bit through a turn, hit a berm and then track evenly through the exit. I saw this often in fast racers, their bikes skipping across the course, seemingly uncontrolled until the instant the rider set the front wheel into the perfect groove or berm and suddenly the motorcycle rocketed forward like a well-piloted F-16. In a much smaller way, I was doing this and I felt just a little bit fast.
Then came the obstacles. These staples of the Steelville course included a twenty-foot drop from a high bluff down into a creek bed, with a hairpin left turn just ahead of deep water. Throughout the two hours of racing, a rut developed at the turn, deepening so much on each pass that I feared my front wheel would come to a complete stop when I hit bottom and launch me into the murky stream. The familiar manure pile had been cleaned out a bit from previous years, but the off-camber mountain goat climb along the side of a steep, wet hill was as challenging as ever.
New for 2001 was garden of boulders which could have been mistaken for an exploded Statue of Liberty, its parts scattered throughout the woods. Nature could not have copied Lady Liberty's color tones any better, nor could it have provided any more unseasonably warm temperatures. Lap three arrived without any major incidents, but my stamina wasn't up to summer-like weather. This is a tricky time to be a racer. A fluid style can quickly turn into a pinball-like game of survival. As the rocky Steelville whoops became deeper, my legs burned and my wrists hurt and I was ready for the race to end.
Fortunately, hare scramble math worked in my favor and my third lap would be my last. In a two-hour race, 40-minute lap times will put a rider at the final checkpoint just in time for the checkered flag. I was clocking in the low-40s, good for three laps, while the faster riders were rewarded with a fourth. In these types of courses, riders can potentially race for nearly two hours and forty minutes, which is comparable to a national series hare scramble. These Missouri racers were well accustomed to such challenges and fought through the Steelville rocks with hardly a complaint other than the condition of their rear tires afterwards. Mine, resembling a block of grated cheese, would head straight to my stack of expired rubber, destined to be recycled back into the environment at my parent's farm.
With such a large turnout for the Open B class, I was happy with my finish and feeling as if my long journey through rocky terrain was finally turning me into a slightly above-average Missouri racer.
