Belleville, Illinois

These pages have recounted many tales from the Belleville Enduro Team (BET) club grounds just outside the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Illinois, where its 103 acres previously operated as a coal mine. After closing in the early 1960s, the mine caught the eyes of enterprising local dirt bikers who began leasing the property in 1965. The Belleville News-Democrat reported BET holding its first official races on October 29, 1967, where Ricky Rainwater won the “251-350 event.” Mr. Rainwater would be among the first of many winners at many BET events in the coming decades.

While the layout of club grounds has changed now and then, the effect of rain is the same today as it was in 1967. Like many parts of Illinois, the Belleville region is blessed with heavy clay soil and a near absence of rock base. Depending on the weather, racing a motorcycle across the BET property can be fabulous or wretched. Just as Ricky Rainwater wreaked havoc on his competitors in 1967, rain and water have a way of inflicting mayhem on anyone silly enough to ride here on a wet day.

Leading up to Sunday, intermittent showers softened the clay, and a forecast for more rain on race day had me wondering why, one week removed from a 12-hour round trip to Arkansas, I needed to spend an afternoon slogging through mud. BET races were so often sloppy affairs that I began to wonder if Mr. Rainwater’s 1967 victory was actually a curse for future generations. For all the wet Sundays at BET, the club might as well have named itself Rainwater Park. Yet here I was, again, eager to give my newish Kawasaki KX250 its first real mud test.

I rolled into the rather compact staging area and chose a spot beside Joe Rosier and his son Keifer, a strong competitor in the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC) junior class. Keifer would use this race as a tune-up for the MHSC opener at Lebanon the following Sunday, along with a handful of other MHSC regulars from the St. Louis area. Joe chatted while I unloaded my bike and gear, both of us trading stories from the offseason. He’d given up his own racing to support Kiefer as his son climbed the ranks of youth racing. Perfectly content to focus his efforts on Keifer, Joe had no bike or ATV to race and couldn’t have cared less. He was proud of his boy.

After registering for the Vet A class, I located the nearest arrows and began walking most of the course. The club had clearly designed the route for a wet day, with one set of arrows for bikes and ATVs. Some of the tightest, most technical elements of the property were missing, in favor of wider, faster trails, but the 100 or so motorcycle racers raised no complaints at the riders meeting. Club officials wasted no time lining us up in the starting field at 10:30, earlier than usual and a blessing, given the clouds rolling in from the west. The trail boss confirmed a three mile course, which suggested ten or so laps within the two hour race.

On the starting line I spotted the familiar brightly colored helmet of the MHSC’s Dwayne Parish and a large KTM thumper piloted by Cape Girardeau, Missouri native Jason Hawk. Dwayne and I had competed together in the MHSC’s Open B class during years past, but today he signed up for a class which put him two rows in front of the Vet racers, where Jason and I awaited our turn to take on a TT track which would usher us into the woods. For those unacquainted with such tracks, these are designed for motorcycles with dirt-ish appearances, racing on a wide, flat track made with hard-packed dirt. The oval track included gently banked turns lined with plywood walls screaming “Let Splinters!” to anyone feeling more aggressive than the damp clay surface would allow. Like most TT tracks, BET’s incorporated a single, smooth jump on the opposite side of the oval, over which even a timid hare scrambler like me could feel comfortable launching a 250 pound dirt bike.

Still, I preferred to examine how other riders negotiated the curves and the jump before deciding how bravely I might charge through the TT track. The first rows swept through the first turn, gracefully sailed over the jump and then exited into the woods. I can do that, I encouraged myself. Straddled between Jason Hawk’s KTM and a guy on a KX250 like mine, I pitched forward when the green flag waived us onto the track. The other KX250 sprinted to the first turn while I followed closely, searching for traction and eyeing the plywood. Around the next corner, the other green machine rose gently over the jump, gracefully touching down with an ever-so-slight leftward kick of the rear wheel. Behind us, six other riders closed in as we left the track and climbed a steep hill. Along a ridge at the top, a left turn pointed us to a fence, then a greasy right-hander sent us toward an open gate. Negotiating through the opening, the other KX250 slid and fell, handing me the lead. I descended down the bumpy backside of the ridge, rear wheel bouncing as the brake locked, and charged to the fastest part of the course.

In 4th gear through a grassy area, I grabbed a handful of throttle and let the KX250 stretch its legs. These bursts of speed always end quickly at the BET property, and I braked hard to turn back into the woods. Thankfully, a pleasant berm lined the lefthander, where I skated across the slick clay and let the bike guide itself around the curve. Within the trees came a tricky off-camber two-track trail which would challenge the ATV’s later in the day. Dirt bikers simply selected one of the tracks and spun their way across, but the four wheelers would ride it like an airplane banking for a turn.

By now I’d caught up to riders in the row starting a minute prior, making passes on the wide trails. Some of the more spacious areas, expansive enough for jeeps to navigate with ease, featured the same type of water breaks I’d jumped the prior week at the White Rock enduro. BET’s were scaled down versions but sketchier on the landings. At some point, apparently, the local rock quarry had a sale on riprap and the club obliged, assembling a mass of stones awaiting my touchdown. If I upshifted and appropriately twisted the throttle, I could clear these zones of potential broken bones. At the first water break, I jerked the shifter into 4th gear, soared above the rocks, then downshifted into 3rd gear for the second takeoff. I cleared that cluttered field of limestone before braking firmly ahead of a sharp turn. This brief section had me loving the KX250’s strong front brake and stable handling over the fast, choppy trails. After years of struggles with the Austrian version of dirt bikes, I sighed with relief for Japanese attention to detail. East Asia may not be first to equip motorcycles with hydraulic clutches or wavy brake rotors or no-tools airbox covers, but what they do sell, by God they get it right.

As for Mother Nature, she almost got it right. Temperatures would rise from the 60s throughout the day, just about right for muscling a dirt bike through the woods. A little less rain in March would have improved the course, but we never had a chance for the same conditions at BET’s first official race. In October 1967, weather data showed barely an inch of rain the entire month. Ricky Rainwater would have crossed the finish line with the thermometer showing 68 degrees. The BET club couldn’t have asked for a better day to begin racing.

Even so, I had no complaints today, holding first place in my class and closing the gap on riders departing from earlier rows. Halfway into the first lap, near an outlying section of the property, I scanned for an arrow split-off I’d noticed during my prerace walk. The club’s intention here was unclear, as the arrows pointing left were barely visible. The main route to the right took a longer, smoother path, while the shorter trail cut into a more technical trail with a nasty mud hole. Bikes ahead followed arrows to the right, so I tested the alternate route. A little muck was no match for the green machine, and I merged back onto the main trail ahead of the other riders as we descended down a tricky off-camber hillside.

Little did I know, I’d just missed a checkpoint. The longer route concealed a small group of club members marking fender cards, of which mine now carried a blank space. While other riders paused for the checkpoint, I patted myself on my chest protector for discovering such a smart shortcut.

The trail zigzagged through the north end of the property until the second checkpoint at the far northwest corner of the club grounds. Along the perimeter, I upshifted to 5th gear and dashed across a clear path before grabbing a handful of my powerful front brake. Back inside the woods, the largest mud hole on the course awaited, but first I negotiated a tight, slick left turn with a nice little berm around the edge. One of the most time-tested propositions of berm theory is cornering speed. A good berm keeps the wheels turning, and the hands and feet away from brake levers. This slick turn had me giddy with joy as I threw the KX250 into the berm and rounded the corner. But alas, I came in hot and flung the bike too low, spinning across the mud until my front wheel pointed 180 degrees the wrong way. After sliding to a stop, I pulled on the handlebars to upright the bike and felt like I was attempting to lift a car. The left handguard had stuck itself a couple inches into the clay, bonding the KX250 like JB Weld on a transmission case. A couple jerks later, the bike separated from the earth and I redirected the front wheel as two other riders passed by.

Back on two wheels, I met the large mud hole straight down the center, charging through cool, dirty water without sinking much at all. The Belleville clay may be slippery, but it’s firm. Through the final mile of the course, the slime rate increased and I struggled to point the bike straight down the trail. After White Rock, I’d mounted the fattest S-12 rear tire Michelin would sell me and marveled how well it gripped in a traction-less environment.

At the final checkpoint near the staging area, I maintained my class lead and clicked off a couple hot laps in the mud. The KX250 worked me harder in these conditions as I struggled to keep the engine RPMs high in tight areas. For the past 5 years I’d been spoiled with KTM hydraulic clutches and the lugging power of 300cc displacement, and now I could see where the naysayers had a point about motocross bikes in the woods. With more clutch use required of the KX250, a sore left hand slowed me near the midpoint of the race. Then, suddenly, the pain subsided and I dialed it back up to 11.

Soon after, the backside of Dwayne Parish appeared just ahead of checkpoint #1. On the second lap I’d realized my shortcut mistake and took the main route for there on, this time following Dwayne through the checkpoint. He used his racing experience to hold me off for some time, until we drag raced through a wider section and I out-braked him at the next corner. Dwayne stuck close to my back tire as we arrived at a rerouted section at the base of a small hill. A deepening rut caught several riders, causing a bottleneck at the point most bikes needed a strong burst of throttle to scale the hill. Course officials reacted quickly to prevent certain individuals (not me, of course) from using stuck bikes as traction.

Lap seven brought me to the 75 minute mark, at which point two gentlemen from the front row lapped me while I chased a Honda four stroke on the TT track. Earlier in the lap I’d executed a move known as scaring someone out of the way, where one rider witnesses another performing such a foolishly crazy stunt that he slows down in fear of being sucked into the other guy’s stupidity. Just after checkpoint #2, a fast, sweeping left turn had formed a nice little rut around the edge, where I could lean in and let the earth guide me. I spotted this as it developed a few laps prior, and now on the 7th lap, I was about to overtake another rider here. I closed in from behind, just as he pointed his bike into the rut, then realized I’d carried too much speed into the corner. I could either stick to the main line with the rut and probably slam into the other guy’s rear tire, or divert to the outside. In fourth gear, this left me about half a second to commit, so I performed a high speed power slide around the outer edge of the corner. Like a speedway racer, I slid through the turn, somehow keeping the bike on two wheels, and witnessed the other rider cock his helmet in my direction and let off the throttle. Perhaps I didn’t scare him out of the way, but he surely knew I was trouble.

Back on the TT track, I began pursuing the Honda, unable to pass anywhere on the course. One lap later, I finally muscled my way around the red bike and completed the race just before sprinkles arrived from the sky. No other Vet A racers protested the results, so my missing checkpoint on the first lap didn’t cost me the class win.

From there, another race ensued: Loading up the bike and gear before the clouds let loose. The air thickened with moisture while tiny humans on Yamaha PW50 peewee minibikes coated themselves in mud while parents helicoptered around the small racetrack in rubber boots. One poor rider’s little tires packed up so heavily with clay that his front forks acted as mud scrapers. I’d already loaded up and retrieved my trophy, content with a strong ride on a solid motorcycle. Next week, I’d be more than ready to take on the Missouri fast guys at the MHSC opener.