Sedalia, Missouri

The organizers of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship are often kind enough to allow at least a couple weeks between events, which is important on two accounts. This gap is usually wide enough to fix broken motorcycles, which for frugal individuals such as myself involves searching the universe for the best bargains on new components and waiting impatiently for the goods, often working into the wee hours of a Saturday night to repair a bike with late-arriving parts. The other helpful advantage of a two-week break is time for the body to wean itself of aches and pains. They never really go away during the season. Only in winter months do the hurts and stings from 9 months of racing truly disappear, but a fortnight’s rest is certainly nice. Leading up to the Sedalia race, I’d lost track of the number of bruises and scrapes and sore knuckles from six months of hare scrambles and enduros, all hidden within a desire to push through the final leg of the season and take home an MHSC class championship.

Other than the usual air filter cleaning and transmission oil change, my aging KTM 300EXC only needed its fuel consumption issue solved. During the previous event at Polo, the engine sputtered on the final lap and required dipping into my reserve supply of fuel. I suspected a leaky gas line, but the telltale wet spot on the garage floor never materialized. After several minutes of brow furrowing and head scratching, my eyes glazed upon an alternate idea, parked just a few feet from my dilapidated motorcycle: A brand new, never ridden KTM 300MXC, beaming brightly in unscathed plastic and shiny rims. Earlier in the summer I’d found a bargain in this motorcycle, with one significant catch. The bike was located at a dealership in Denver. Hoping for faith in humanity, I struck a deal without hesitation, wired money to a business I’d never visited and prayed the new bike would be waiting for me 850 miles to the west. Fortunately for all parties involved, the KTM arrived at my home about a month later.

There it sat, the 300MXC, fresh and clean and perfect, while nearby the old 300EXC was a problem-solving exercise ahead of each race. Alas, my strategy was to save the new bike for the 2003 season and ride out the old one through the remaining events this year. I stuck to the plan, and as luck would intervene, while unloading the 300EXC at the Sedalia staging area I noticed fuel sloshing out from the gas cap breather hose. Readjustment of a simple rubber seal inside the cap had me heading for the practice lap with the fuel issue resolved.

And what a practice lap. Trail conditions might only have been better if a downy layer of goose feathers had been gently deposited over the course. Dare I use the word “loamy” to describe a Missouri race south of Interstate 70? Of course not, for the terrain included its fair share of rocks, most now fully exposed from the ATV race in the morning. But I could have hugged the trail boss who added several miles of bike-only singletrack, left pure and unadulterated for the afternoon race. The proverbial cherry on top was rain earlier in the week. Apart from a few open areas, dust took a pause and Sedalia was a dream.

The racing was pretty good, too. Aside from Dwayne Parrish flying by and taking my sure holeshot, I couldn’t have asked for a better start. We pushed through the woods, a bike length between us, toward the first creek section. Missouri hare scrambles are chock full of sprints through the centers of waterways, and Lake Creek did not disappoint. Dwayne led our parade of riders, crisscrossing a narrow flow flanked by loose gravel. Passing was risky through here, with rocks spewing from Dwayne’s rear tire, water splashing into my goggles, and the occasional boulder peaking out from below the mayhem. I spied a tangle of logs ahead, lying across most of the 25-foot width of the creek, where the main line sent riders toward the far edge. Perhaps I remembered this feature from the practice lap, or maybe I just decided it was kamikaze time, but my mind became hell-bent on slamming through those logs. When Dwayne took the long way around, I pointed my front wheel straight through the center of the creek, hopped over the fallen trees and gained the lead.

At that point an astounding, fantastic thought burst into my conscious: I am leading, and this is normal. Granted, B-class dirt bike racing isn’t exactly the pinnacle of motorsports, but I began to understand how confidence shapes performance. It shows up in places like Durham, North Carolina, where a certain college basketball team doesn’t hope to win championships, they expect to hang banners in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Today, my hopes had turned to expectations. I was leading my class, as it should be.

Soon after, the roar of many engines faded to the tone of my own, as riders spread across the course and I extended my lead. With clean air ahead, I settled into what hare scramblers often refer to as rhythm, where the trails flow easily and no other riders must be dealt with. Just me and the bike, slicing through trees and hitting all the right lines and feeling…an odd pain in my left leg, just above the knee? So much for rhythm. Leg cramps had not ever been a thing for me, but here they were, raining on my lead. A minute later, my right leg joined the cramp party. Never one to bother much with standing on the foot pegs, I was forced to change my strategy and stretch the quad muscles. The pain persisted at only about a 4 out of 10 on the hospital scale of fun-turned-ER-visit, but I was a bit annoyed. Nevertheless, I pushed on and extended my lead.

After checking through the scoring lane in first place, I set out for a second lap, oozing with confidence. The 9-mile course was split roughly in thirds, with the first and last sections sharing trails from the ATV race. In the middle, a checkpoint kept us honest at a slippery creek crossing, where we headed for the fresh singetrack. These narrow trails looped back near the checkpoint and sent us into a final run through the ATV part of the course.

In the singletrack section, an ambulance appeared in a pasture, where paramedics attended to Shawn Hall. He’d crashed badly and suffered a broken leg, hip and wrist. Thirty minutes later, on my third lap, Shawn remained in the pasture. An all-around good guy, he gritted through the pain while EMTs prepared him for the start of a long recovery.

Soon after, fast guys in the 4-stroke B class caught up and passed me, at which point I reacted like a super-fan chasing a bicycle-riding NFL star at training camp. I simply had to keep up. But the reality of the situation set in quickly, which is this: It’s pointless to try. Faster is just faster, any way you measure it. The only way I’d get back around those guys is if they crashed or broke something (or both). From there, I resolved to my fate, watching the portly machines fade into the underbrush.

With only a stray lapper to pursue now and then, my fourth lap was my slowest. Near the end, Adam Ashcroft, fast guy and landowner at the previous round at Polo, passed me just before the scoring trailer. I followed him into our fifth and final lap, where he stalled near the staging area. Perhaps this was the point at which a tree branch jammed a full inch inside his hand. Never one to let minor irritations disrupt a perfectly good dirt bike competition, Adam finished the race in fine fashion.

By this time my legs began protesting spectacularly, sending me into an even more squat position on the bike, butt firmly planted against my cushy seat. I stood on the pegs only to avoid ejection over obstacles such as creek-gravel whoops and log crossings. If you’re curious, the answer is yes, it is possible to sit down for an entire lap, but the odds are strongly in favor of the motorcycle imitating the cockpit of an MIG-29 on its way to a fiery crash. Ejection is inevitable. So I reluctantly stretched my sore legs through Lake Creek, which had developed Supercross-deep whoops and held enough water to cloud my vision as I splashed through in 3rd gear. As if the whoops themselves weren't bad enough, these were made from piles of walnut-sized gravel. Each lap I was downright slow through there.

The race ended with five laps and another first place finish in my class. An hour later I scanned the results, printed on pages of 8x11 paper and pasted to the side of the scoring trailer, and noticed the electronic scanner missed one of my laps. The printout listed me the lower half of the Open B class. Backup sheets confirmed my win, but when official scorekeeper Steve Weible printed the revised Open B results, he handed me the sheet of paper and a piece of duct tape, patted my shoulder and declared "You get to put'em up." As he walked away, I detected a faint word of advice: "Good luck with that." Marty Smith was relegated to second place with the revision, and then got dropped to third when Ray Osia noticed a lap was also missing from his results.

Despite the revisions, all were happy at Sedalia. With the continued absence of faster Open B riders and the season winding down, I felt good about my chances to win the series. All I needed were the zip ties and duct tape and baling wire to hold together my race-weary KTM for a few more events…and a cure for leg cramps.