Eugene, Missouri

A hare scramble takes a special type of land and a particular kind of landowner to secure a spot on the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC) schedule. Several hundred acres of woods under common ownership may not be difficult to locate on a county plat map, but the race won’t happen without an enthusiastic club and an owner willing to invite scores of off-road racers to tear through his property as if they’re outrunning a tornado. The land must also be suitable for trucks and trailers to enter, park and exit, and the staging area needs several acres where riders can line up to start their race. You won’t find these properties in every country neighborhood. They’re scattered far wider than the debris of an EF-5, and that means a lot of driving.

These travels are rarely interesting, except when things don’t go as planned or parts of the drive foretell the outcome of the race. My little GMC Sonoma did its job and I successfully navigated to the Eugene venue, but along the way a peculiar array of Missouri license plates stood out, all containing groups of letters reading “DNF”. The Missouri plate format, for those not interested in vanity, begins with three digits, a space, and then three letters. Those characters, in the language of motorcycle racing, mean “Did Not Finish”. Why, on this day, did I observe so many of these plates?

The answer lie in a fiction writer’s best friend: Foreshadowing. More on that later.

As for the racing, September proved itself once again the most favored month, with weather and track conditions nearly better than the previous MHSC round at Smithville Lake. Granted, the Eugene venue exists in the southern half of the state, so rocks they were aplenty. But midweek rains arrived in time to dampen the course and eliminate dust, leaving just enough dry days to preserve ideal traction for Sunday.

On the other hand, the Little Tavern Creek wasn’t done draining the runoff, sending enough volume toward the nearby Osage River to swell a bit higher than most dirt bikers would prefer. The Spare Parts club once again routed part of the course into a half-mile marathon through the channel, so it wasn’t just an exercise in crossing from one side of the creek to the other. More like Russian Roulette, this contest would have us navigate through endless pools of dark water and feel our wheels either splash through 6 inches of liquid or disappear into a 3-foot abyss. All the while, we’d crisscross the channel, dodging slimy stones and slippery boulders. Walking the creek section before the practice lap, I found no better alternatives than the beaten path, which was not so much beaten as it was a narrow line with some of the larger rocks pushed aside.

In our favor, the club reversed last year’s course and offered a downstream trip through the creek, though still in full view of the adjacent pit area and its gaggle of spectators. When it came to onlookers, I strived to be like the home plate umpire nobody remembers during the game because they did nothing memorable but call’em right. Today, I’d be more of an Angel Hernandez.

After starting on the 3rd row at Smithville, it was now the Vet class’ turn at the back of the pack, somewhere around 8 rows behind the AA class. Our starting line was abuzz with the sight of #35 Robbie Jo Reed, making a rare appearance after winning the first two rounds in March. On either side of me were #76 Gary Mittelberg and #81 Matt Weis, along with #442 Steve Crews, #237 Elston Moore, and Kevin Ruckdeschell in the mix. All the fast old guys would battle for bragging rights at one of the best courses of 2003.

The sight of the green flag, as usual, put me in a slow state of motion and an average starting position. Elston and I battled to the first corner, then lurched down into the creek. We’d only see about half of it on this abbreviated first lap, which was fine with me. Water splashed from the tires of a dozen motorcycles as we skated across flat rock beds and bounced off sharp-edged boulders. A quarter mile later we scaled a slippery bank and then continued climbing a steep off-camber hill, where I passed Kevin and settled in with a train of riders. Kevin remained close behind, along with Gary, who chose an alternative route through a rock ledge and sped by. He is, to use a tired corporate cliché, an outside-the-box thinker, always scanning ahead for passing lanes. While I’m usually more focused on not crashing, Gary uses his many years of trail mastery to see what others don’t, and this makes him quite effective on a dirt bike.

Soon after Gary’s pass, Kevin did the same and I followed him through the end of the first lap. On the second lap, Kevin pulled away and out of sight in the creek section. I never saw him again, but soon caught up to Robbie Jo Reed. He’d blitzed through the first lap and was now, to my surprise, fading. I passed by with relative ease and charged ahead with no idea where I stood in the class standings. The slower B class riders came and went, some pulling over without a fight and others needing a bit of persuasion. The course offered enough mix of singletrack and wider trails to make the passes trouble free.

I squeezed through the scoring trailer chicane a second time and then dropped down into the creek to start my third lap, where all was fine until it wasn’t. In the deepest water, I lost balance and fell over, trying a desperate bodily sacrifice to keep the airbox dry. It didn’t work. The KTM 300MXC lay on its side, completely submerged. My day was done.

With help from spectators, I pushed the bike up the creek bank and to my truck. I pulled off the air cleaner and wrung out the liquid, then grabbed a spark plug wrench and began the routine of clearing water from the engine. With the spark plug removed and the motorcycle upside down, I cranked on the kick starter lever and gazed at an amazing volume of water expelled from the engine. Nearly ten years earlier I’d done this to my very first real dirt bike, a 1994 Suzuki RMX250, and learned from Russell Bills, owner of Watseka Suzuki-Honda, how to correct the situation. In those pre-AI days, knowledge of this sort could only be obtained through direct communication with living, breathing hominids, and Russ was a kind, patient human.

After ridding the bike of water, I had a notion to go back out and enjoy another lap but decided to suck up my DNF and drive home. Kevin Ruckdeschell turned in an outstanding ride and collected the Vet class win, followed closely by Elston Moore. Steve Crews locked up the Vet class championship with a 3rd place finish, leaving him with enough series points to cruise through the remaining season. My spate of average finishes in 2003 put me well down in the point standings, but I planned to ride out the season, prepare my new Kawasaki KX250 for woods racing, and look forward to 2004.