Bixby, Missouri

As an element, Pb has suffered its share of poor publicity. Sure, it’s a neurotoxin, but lead has been pretty good to eastern Missouri off-road enthusiasts. After it’s extracted from the earth, certain mining companies make one final harvest of tax write-offs and positive press by donating the land to state agencies or local non-profits. Case in point is the Viburnum Trend Riding Area (VTRA), site of the 3rd round of the 2003 Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC). Doe Run Co., a multinational mining company, donated the 600-acre property on which we would race this cool spring afternoon. The VTRA planned to eventually open the property to weekend riding, so today offered MHSC racers a preview of sorts.

Another generous donor was the Nasty Creek club, host to many MHSC events at Steelville, who provided RFID cards free of charge to all riders at the beginning of the season. Even better, the replacements were also free. At the signup trailer, I turned in the battered card from my big crash at Columbia two weeks prior and received a brand new one at no cost.

With 20 or so hours on the no-so-new KTM 300MXC, including two races and many trips to St. Joe State Park for testing, the bike hadn’t exactly met my expectations. The Bixby race offered another opportunity to sort out its European quirks, long documented by motorcycle magazines and displayed as a badge of honor by KTM fanboys. I’d finally given up on solving the engine pinging issue, which seemed like a lean fuel mixture but couldn’t be fixed by any amount of carburetor fiddling. A 50/50 mix of VP race fuel and 93 octane pump gas took care of the pinging, but now my riding routine included occasional trips to a little motorcycle drag racing shop in a not-so-comfortable part of north St. Louis, where my nearest VP dealer operated out of a converted 1950s service station. The 300MXC tested my patience. Adding to the race gas inconvenience was a front brake that wouldn’t stop me as quick as I preferred, a seat which remained hard as granite, and front forks so harsh that I could feel sharp impacts through my jaw. The 2002 era for KTM was surely a low point in quality, evidenced by the attractive price from the Denver dealer who needed to clear out excess inventory in the middle of last year. This was the KTM 300, a universally proclaimed best-in-class, do-it-all offroad machine which in past years required nearly immediate purchase to secure an available unit. These days the KTM world seemed a bit off. Yet with Japanese manufacturers quickly abandoning the 2-stroke off-road market, KTM could subject its loyal followers to this mediocrity with little impact on sales.

My KTM loyalty may have been waning, but for now I was stuck with the bike. In desperation, I swapped the stock seat for the much softer one from my to-be-sold 1999 300EXC and tested it on the practice lap with Matt Sellers. Buttocks satisfied, I lined up for the start of the race in a windy, cold field with the rest of the 14-strong Vet class. Defending champ Kevin Ruckdeschell, of the Kansas City area, lined up to my right. Sticking close to Kevin offered the best chance to finish well, and I did everything in my power to make sure I didn’t stay close to him.

My regular readers should easily predict the next few minutes that led to Kevin Ruckdeschell leaving my sight at the starting line. For everyone else, my race began with the usual kick start misfortune. I really do try. The internet is filled with advice and recommended procedures for dead engine starts, and I follow them all. For 30 seconds or so after the class in front of us departed, I ran the engine, shifted into 2nd gear, hit the kill switch, kept the clutch lever pulled in, gave a quick blip of throttle before the engine died, worked the kickstarter to position the piston at top dead center, and then gave it a strong kick when the starting board dropped. This works like a charm, apparently, for everyone else. At Bixby and so many others, it functioned like a bad hangover. Multiple kicks on the starter lever were not enough. The engine wouldn’t fire.

In these situations hare scramblers live by a certain etiquette. When a bike won’t start, the rider is left with about 30 seconds to deal with the problem or move out of the way for the next row. To remain on the line invites calamity for the following group, and the trail boss probably wouldn’t stand for it. When the 30-second board was raised for the next class of riders, I dejectedly pushed my bike off the line and attempted to fire the engine near the spectator area. Matt Sellers, stationed two rows behind in the Open B class, gave me a shout of encouragement or possibly harassment. What I needed was a holler from someone who knew why in the world the engine hated me. Perhaps I’d fouled a plug, or flooded the carburetor with all the kicking. Perhaps I’d forgotten (again) to turn the fuel petcock to the “On” position (amazingly, the fuel was flowing). As the next class left the starting line, I frantically attempted all combinations of fuel-on/no throttle, throttle/fuel-off, throttle/fuel-on with swearing, no throttle/fuel-off with begging, pleading, and various other combinations of expletives.

Still no luck.

Another unspoken rule on the starting line is courtesy for riders about to begin their race. When the 15-second board appears for subsequent classes, all bikes must remain silent, similar to the respectful call for quiet during a tennis serve or a golf tee-off. I quit kicking the starter lever while those 15 seconds passed, then began again in earnest after the row departed. Finally, with the fuel petcock closed and the 30-second board displayed for Matt’s class, the engine fired and I awkwardly proceeded while fumbling to turn on the fuel.

The only real upside to allowing competitors a 90 second head start is that the riders tend to be well-spaced when I finally catch up. One by one, I could focus on alternate lines around single riders, rather than groups, and without pressure from anyone coming in hot from behind. I passed early and I passed often, using a variety of standard tactics such as the block pass, and a few questionable maneuvers including the “bump” pass, which is pretty much as it sounds. Lap times would later show that I moved past half the Vet class on the first lap.

Progress continued on the second lap, another 11 miles of rocky singletrack and ATV trails. The 300MXC, with its close ratio motocross-style transmission, worked well in this environment. The gap between 2nd and 3rd gears, the widest spacing on my old 300EXC, wasn’t much of a gap on the new bike. I could upshift into 3rd and maintain momentum, where the EXC would have required more clutch work. The MXC gave up top-end speed, as the gaps between 3rd through 5th gears were about the same as the old bike, but lower gearing overall. I would eventually miss the EXC’s “overdrive” 5th gear during enduro transfer sections across country roads, but for hare scrambles, close-ratio gearing was the best thing going.

The other best thing going was Neal Soenksen’s second lap, a blazing 37 minutes and 57 seconds. His hot lap of the day, the quickest for the entire Vet class, vaulted Neal from 5th place to 1st. I worked hard to keep up, with a second-lap time only 4 seconds slower, but Neal was in a class of his own. If we maintained this pace, we’d finish the third lap just shy of the 2-hour countdown and be sent out for a 4th run through the course. This seemed fine until I realized I’d be racing well past the 2.5-hour mark. Should I pit for gas, or hope my fuel tank wouldn’t leave me pushing my bike to the finish line?

Before I could consider this dilemma any further, I fell down around a tight corner and two guys left me standing while I kicked the engine back to life. I’d already passed these gentlemen earlier, which demonstrates the large cost of little mistakes. But I rebounded quickly, repassed both riders, and felt I was riding about as good as my limited skills would allow. Then the bike decided to act as if I were towing a medium-sized piece of office furniture behind me. I let off the throttle, and without any effort came to a rapid stop. No smoking brake calipers or bent brake rotors or wobbly wheels, but…wait a minute…I know this feeling. My memory rewound to 1996, the year I bought a new Suzuki RMX250 and decided to test its race readiness during one of the wettest, muddiest Illinois springs on record. At an early-May hare scramble somewhere near Canton, fresh off my first-ever 250 B trophy a couple weeks prior, I suffered through a rutted mudfest and felt the same odd self-braking each time I let off the throttle. Believing it was just the 45 pounds of mud packed into every crevice of the poor RMX, I continued on to the end, seizing up the engine about 50 feet from my pickup truck. As three grown men heaved the disabled bike into my truck, I noticed a small piece of tree branch wedged between the brake pedal and the engine side case. The rear brake, not the mud, had slowed me, and it cost me a piston and a cylinder sleeve.

Back at Bixby, I glanced down at my brake pedal, and darned if I didn’t see almost the same thing. Instead of wood, a small rock locked down the brake pedal. I grabbed the pedal, and with a couple stiff jerks, heard the satisfying “plop” of the small stone falling to the ground. With that, the rear brake unlocked.

Meanwhile, I lost count of the riders passing by while I extracted the rock. At the start of this third lap, I’d come within 10 seconds of Kevin Ruckdeschell, but the slide-out and brake pedal incident ruined any chance of catching him. I also lost sight of Steve Crews on his diminutive Kawasaki KDX, proving once again that size doesn’t matter. On the fourth lap, trailing Steve in 4th place, I finally caught back up, then fell again. The bike came to rest against a fallen tree, which punctured the seat cover and left a gaping hole directly in the center. I’d intended to swap the seat back onto the old 300EXC, which still awaited a new owner, but too lazy to spend five minutes on the swap, I now had a seat cover to replace for a bike about to be sold. Thus continued The Stichnoth Way.

The fourth lap finished with a flurry, with Steve Crews suddenly visible near the end. I turned up the race pace to 11 and reeled him in with just enough time to make a pass before the finish line. Ahead of me was Kevin Ruckdeschell in 2nd place and Vet class winner Rick Kinkelaar. In the overall standings, defending champ Steve Leivan took his first win of the season with a late pass on Chris Thiele about 100 yards from the finish. Behind me in the Open B class, Matt Sellers finished 3rd in one of his best rides in years. It’s not often we are blessed with a brand new race venue, and Bixby did not disappoint.