Newark, Missouri

The ninth installment of the 2022 MHSC series officially brought in the dog days of summer at a completely new racing property near the town of Newark. As with nearly all venues, this one identified the town only as a point of reference for the rural site in which the hare scrambling would occur. These events are rarely staged anywhere close to population centers or even near a 100-person town such as Newark. Somehow the ambiance of screaming engines mounted to a few hundred motorcycles and ATVs does not soothe the locals. In fact, we racers are pretty much the only individuals who care for such resonance, and to be honest, I doubt very many of us would want to live next to it.

Those concerns were easily cast aside within the staging area, positioned more than a half mile off the nearest road at the end of a winding driveway. This was Northeast Missouri farm and ranch country, where neighbors could be seen with a telescope and a tall tree. Nearly as obscure were rocks, which revealed themselves as sparingly as a Republican at a Greenpeace rally. Rich, loamy soil and old-growth woods set my mind at ease.

No matter what region of Missouri a traveler visits in late June, the sure bet is hot weather, and Newark fell in line with the odds makers. Matt Sellers and I arrived early to comfortable temperatures, only to feel the thermometer rise all morning. As sweat accumulated, I shocked nearby racers and spectators by removing my shirt with no warning. Onlookers scrambled for polarized eyewear. Without adequate protection, the radiance of my pale, white chest could not be endured by the naked eye.

The mid-90s heat kept away the fair weather racers, reducing the registration line and offering a quick look at the ATVs nearing the end of their race. As they arrived at the scoring trailer, riders and machines passed through plastered in mud, offering further evidence that one can be blinded by dust and swamp mud, both in the same race. Along the walk back to my pickup truck, the spotless Honda CR250 of Lars Valin stood out among the many orange and blue and green machines. Lars had recently returned from an International Six Days Enduro (“ISDE”) qualifier event and finished well enough to represent the United States on a club team in the Czech Republic later in the year. In his modest style, Lars needed prodding from a friend to admit that he had, in fact, qualified for the ISDE and would be shipping a bike to Europe with the rest of the U.S. team.

At the truck, I pulled off my shirt again, this time giving more advanced notice, and roasted to medium rare in the hot sun. A practice lap cooled me a bit on the 9.5 mile course, which contained enough variety of tight and technical trails, fast woods and open fields to entertain and challenge all comers. Longtime fast guy Gary Mittelberg had laid out an effective route through the large property, using his racing expertise to satisfy even the most discerning of riders. Early on, though, Gary had me wondering. A wet, silty creek bed was already deteriorating into a series of deep ruts scooped out by the few motorcycles already on the course. Shortly after, a tricky one-line off-camber section was followed by a pair of riders stalled on a short, steep climb. Potential bottlenecks added up quickly, and we’d barely traveled a mile.

Conditions soon improved, but the newness of the course left the trails with little flow. Most areas had seen more deer hooves than knobby tires. This left Matt and I mostly on a navigation exercise, dodging trees and saplings while linking up eye-level arrows across ground covered in sticks and leaves. We found surprising quantities of sand and a few more potential problem areas before finishing our practice lap about 40 minutes after we began. The race organizers quickly recognized the nasty spots and performed last-minute reroutes and re-arrowing in certain sections. With these changes, and 125 or so motorcycles breaking in the trails, the course transitioned into fine shape for racing.

With a splash of gas and a sandwich in my belly, I lined up with the Open B class, now relegated to a position near the back of the field. We’d had our primo 3rd row at the Park Hills hare scramble two weeks prior, and it was now our turn to rotate rearward. The long procession of rows leaving ahead of us gave me just enough time to notice a tiny drip of fuel leaking from a crack in my fuel line. This had happened before, and yet I still let chance determine when to replace the line. My friend Bill Steele once offered excellent advice on this topic, after I mentioned my clutch perch bolt had fallen out approximately 30 seconds into the Jonesboro, Illinois hare scramble in 2000. “Maybe you should come up with some sort of pre-race maintenance routine,” he suggested. Someday, I might just heed his guidance.

On this day, however, there would be no rush back to the truck to perform a makeshift repair. I would either finish the race with enough fuel or run out trying. And try I did, starting our green-flag dash through an open field in a mid-pack position. Matt jumped ahead more quickly and charged toward a creek crossing. I followed him through, then chased Matt in a high speed sprint across the pasture on the opposite side. The grassy track led us back to the creek, where we dropped into the mostly dry center and sped downstream. The worst of the silty creek section from the practice lap had been removed, but enough of it remained for riders to kick up huge amounts of sand. From my racing wardrobe I’d selected a mesh jersey, which kept me cool and also acted as a human-sized sand sifter. Like an hourglass, the course grains worked their way down from my chest to my underwear. The super grippy seat cover on my KTM 300EXC, combined with an aversion to standing while riding, left my buttocks feeling as if I’d sat on a belt sander without pants.

In the first half of the lap I moved past Matt and gained a few more spots on a much better defined course. The trails had gained an even flow across a dry, light loam. I could focus more on the trail ahead, rather than glue my eyes to colorful arrows stapled to trees. The rear tire dug into corners and, like Lamar Odom on a road trip, hooked up everywhere. This traction served all riders well at the base of one of the steepest hills on the MHSC circuit, tucked away at the edge of a small creek near the end of the lap. Just shy of the 40-foot summit, a poorly placed tree root caused an awful dread for anyone lacking enough momentum to float up and over. Rear tires were no match for the root, and once a rider found himself up against it, all progress halted. Thus began a steep slide all the way to the bottom.

The hill and its insulting tree root offered little resistance during any of my four laps, but others were less fortunate. On each pass, a rider or two lay stranded on the side of the hill and small groups paused near the bottom, assessing the best lines to the top. The only way to scale this minor mountain was to point one’s motorcycle into its face, grab some throttle and hope not to be offended at the top.

Another rude obstacle appeared in the form a large rock placed in the center of an off-camber trail. This lone piece of granite, the only stone in the entire course, found my front tire on every lap. Multiple mental notes, in which I begged my brain to remember that rock, did no good. Around the same corner, four times in a row (or five, if counting the practice lap), the rock met my tire with a predictable thump.

The first lap ended much more quickly than the practice lap, and I began my second trip around the course with no idea of my class position. The one o’clock hour had passed and the heat turned as oppressive as an authoritative regime. The woods weren’t exactly a Sandinista excursion to put some caps in the Contras, but it was darned hot. Fatigue had my mind thinking mosquitos found their way into my ears, and then I caught a glimpse of a buzzing 80cc dirt bike closing in from behind. Surely I wasn’t about to be passed by a Junior class racer? Oh, the shame! I couldn’t possibly let this happen, so I cranked up my aggression and held off the young rider for a time. But alas, he passed by easily with a smooth line and quickly disappeared in the trees, eventually beating nearly half the B riders to his one-hour finish line.

The youngster’s race may have been over in two laps, but the rest of the field would add at least a couple more trips around the course. My third lap flowed with consistency, where I remained in second place behind Matt Coffman. His lap times bested mine by about two minutes and put him in the range of the top-20 overall finishers. Lurking behind me was the other Matt (Sellers), now settled into 4th place and riding his finest race of the year.

My fourth and final lap began and ended with no drama and no change in position. Near the end, Brandon Forrester led seasoned champion Steve Leivan by less than a bike length when both riders lapped me. The pair of Pro class fast guys finished in that order, with a pair of gentlemen named Chris (Thiele and Nesbitt) a couple of minutes behind.

Matt and I both hung around after the race to collect our trophies, realizing we’d just experienced the best dirt Missouri could offer. We hoped to see this place again.