Florence, Missouri

In Missouri during the month of July, you tend to get a feel for how the day will turn out when sweating through your clothes at 6:30 a.m. After loading up my KTM for the journey to the Florence round of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC), my soaked t-shirt foreshadowed much of what lie in store for me and scores of other riders foolish enough to suit up for an afternoon race in the middle part of the state. More than a month had passed since my last ride, the infamous Knob Noster hare scramble which cost me $250 for transmission work and 4 weeks without a dirt bike. I’d already parted ways with my previous KTM, the 1999 300EXC, now enjoying a new home in Michigan, and had no backup plan for the two MHSC rounds I missed. My Vet class season points had taken a beating.

In an effort to remain cheerful, I could name several positives from this debacle, starting with my mastery of the digital camera I purchased the month prior. With nothing better to do the weekend after Knob Noster, I helped the organizing club with MHSC events at St. Joe State Park, preserving a throwaway race in exchange for work average points, and spent the afternoon in the woods chasing riders with my camera and hanging out with Missouri’s state insect, the deer tick. I also began exploring KTM alternatives. I’d never bought new motorcycles in consecutive years, but I was about to start.

The start of the race, however, would be delayed nearly an hour by a lost and possibly injured ATV rider in the woods. Somehow, three hours removed from the quad race, after most of the motorcycles had already completed a practice lap, a rider could not be located along the trail. The 12:30 start time came and went as the sweep crew searched. Around 1:00, motorcycle riders quietly arranged themselves in a large, sunny field, then abandoned their bikes on the starting line for anything on the fringes resembling shade. The temperature approached 99 degrees and this was certainly not a dry heat. I’d already suffered through a head cold earlier in the week and explosive port-a-potty diarrhea after the practice lap, and now the sun baked my boots to medium rare.

At 1:22 p.m. the Vet class departed into a cloud of dust, the product of summer heat and scorched earth left by ATVs. Visibility in the opening section of pasture stretched just beyond my fender, where I could make out the rear tire of the motorcycle ahead of me and not much else. At 40 mph, I pointed my front wheel directly into the center of the dust cloud and hoped for the best, even though Stevie Wonder could have ridden a dirt bike through here with about the same odds of safety. As it were, my mid-pack start had me signed, sealed and delivered toward the edge of the pasture, hoping the other riders knew where they were going.

There are no rear brake lights in off-road racing, and without warning the bikes ahead slowed nearly to a stop as we entered an opening into the woods. With 6 or more riders out front, the trees offered no reprieve. The fortunate one who earned the holeshot sped away while the rest of us crept along in 1st gear, visibility limited to approximately 10 feet and choking on a haze of airborne silt. I had raced in positively awful circumstances over the years, and I can easily affirm that Florence suffered the most dangerously terrible conditions I’d ever experienced. Truly, the blind led the sightless on this first lap, and the heat had already sapped my energy not even 5 minutes into the race. How would I ever survive the next two hours?

As most races do, the pack gradually spread out and the dust thinned slightly, never allowing a clear view but fading just enough to safely run the course. On this first lap I somehow executed a handful of passes on riders who might not have even detected an orange motorcycle sliding around the fine silt and jagged rocks. The entire scene resembled a fire safety video where a family of victims awakens to smoke-filled rooms and must evacuate before suffocating. At home, muscle memory helps a person feel their way to clean air, but in these woods, I could only feel my way through a minor shortcut which seemed a quick way to make a couple more passes. Instead I lost balance, and the creative line sent me to the ground on the side of a hill. In a matter of seconds, the riders I’d worked so hard to pass jumped ahead of me again.

Choking on their dust, I nearly coughed up the Carl Buddig turkey sandwich I’d enjoyed earlier while seated on my pickup truck tailgate. The black rubber bed mat probably could have cooked the meat to medium rare, much like me battling through the first lap. Too cheap to invest in a pop-up awning or even a shade umbrella, I wasn’t able to drink enough fluids to offset dehydration before the race, and now my Camelbak drained quickly.

After battling through a complete lap on the rough, rocky course, I began the second lap by blowing through yellow caution tape marking the first turn in the starting area. The club had rightly assumed most of us were smart enough to remember the flow of the course through here, without using arrows, but they didn’t consider the influence of endless dust, fatigue and thirst on a man’s state of mind. Less than pleased by my mistake, I may have uttered (or shouted) a handful of choice words while I fumbled my way to the correct path. During that time Matt Sellers, leading the Open B class, caught up and passed me from two rows behind. Not to downplay Matt’s stellar riding on a difficult day, but I felt defeated. When Matt and I began riding and racing together in 1999, he could pound his way through the rocks more quickly than me, but I’d improved since then. Days like today, I wasn’t supposed to see Matt on the trail, certainly not with a two minute head start, but here he was, smoking me in the dust.

Other than watching Matt disappear into the fog, I recall very little about that second lap, other than feeling physically unprepared. I’d spent years training in the Missouri heat and humidity, either during the week on my mountain bike or on weekends playing in the dirt, to a point where my lap times usually remained steady throughout hot races. Last year I never bonked, which is a highly technical term for when the body suddenly and simply gives out from fatigue. Once a person bonks, the pace slows considerably and a race becomes one of survival. I could sense a serious bonking coming on and I didn’t like it, especially with 90 minutes remaining.

Evidently I wasn’t the only one bonking on lap two. Many riders sat at shady spots along the trail, motorcycles parked and bodies hunched in positions screaming Show me the nearest lake so I may jump in! Therein lies the challenge of dirt bike racing in extreme heat: Even when paused to cool off, a rider is still wearing boots, long socks, long pants, a long sleeved jersey and sometimes a chest protector. This was the equivalent of stepping into a sauna to cool off during a half-marathon. Not a single rider ended his break feeling satisfied.

Somehow I bounced my way through the second lap and began a third, happy to be almost halfway done with the race. By now the riders had spread widely throughout the course and the air improved between the gaps. Open B fast guy Mark Kendall’s pace slowed just enough for me to catch up, where I followed him for a mile or two and slipped by on a tricky hill. For a second, the pass felt good. Then I remembered Mark still led me by 2 minutes on adjusted time. Matt then appeared ahead with his bike stalled. I shouted a warning that Mark lurked behind, but in the chaos of dust and noise, Matt interpreted this as “Maer kerskie donut hole Kelly Clarkson!”

Two crashes later, I checked through the scoring lane for the third time, completely fatigued and praying the fourth lap would be my last. The course maintained about the same level of roughness, despite over 100 bikes kicking up rocks and dust for the past hour and a half. Mark Kendall amped up his pace and passed me again, but I felt if I could hang with him, a top-20 overall result might be possible. On the other hand, a finish in that range would surely require 5 laps, and right now the thought of one more lap through this hellish course ranked right up there with a prostate exam. Then the sight of #30 Adam Ashcroft pulling off the trail somehow pushed out those thoughts of quitting early. Adam is a strong racer, which was a testament for today’s difficult conditions. I wanted to tough it out.

Ten minutes shy of two hours, I checked through the scoring trailer and willed myself to complete one more lap. To say I was running on empty would be an understatement. A mile into the lap, I drained my Camelbak, sucking out the last drops of liquid with a soul crushing realization that no thirst would be quenched until the race ended. Adding to my misery, the gear shifter bolt worked its way loose. I stopped twice to hand-tighten the fastener, hoping it would somehow remain in place for the next 20 minutes. But the lever finally separated from the engine and joined the random bits of trail junk left for the organizers to pick up later. I finished the final miles stuck in 2nd gear.

Back at the truck, I parked the bike and collapsed. At that point, as with so many other physically overwhelming races, my body began a rapid decline, as if to say I carried you this far I sense you’re done punishing me now I shall punish you. Any form of movement came with nausea. I forced down as much water as my stomach would allow and begged Matt to load my bike in the truck. Neither of us felt any desire to wait for the results to be posted. We cranked up the air conditioning and headed for home, more memories made which could only be understood by those who participated.

Later that evening, I stepped on the scale and found myself 8 pounds lighter than I’d began the day. To the layperson who might wonder how anyone can lose 5% of their body weight riding a machine which “does all of the work”, the answer is yes, dirt bike racing is the most physically demanding sport I’ve ever attempted. And I ain’t done yet.