Sedalia, Missouri

The world wide web is alive with helmet cam footage of dirt bikers flying through wooded trails, and finally we racers can show our non-riding friends what all the fuss is about. At work, the internet police seem unconcerned with company-owned devices downloading huge video files, so I’ve shared clips with coworkers who have seen me limp into the office on Monday mornings. The most common observation is the proximity of trees to riders. How do you do that without hitting them, I am often asked.

Carefully, I reply.

I then explain to these finance professionals that sometimes we do make contact with trees, but we also take the necessary precautions such as hand guards to preserve fingers. If the listener hasn’t already bolted to check his fantasy football standings, I share the nuances of tree encounters, where the difference between grazing the bark and a full-on yard sale crash can be half an inch. Today at the Sedalia round of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC), that half-inch would end my race early.

Twelve rounds into the MHSC series, I hobbled into Sedalia, barely recovered from an ankle sprain two weeks earlier at the Polo round. Each morning after, I gauged progress by whose pace I could match along the 300-yard walk from a downtown St. Louis parking garage to my office. During the first week I practically crawled through the St. Louis Centre mall, connected to the garage and the US Bank tower, never once considering a stop at the top floor food court for a breakfast sandwich at Chick-fil-a. I missed our usual Friday team building lunch at ShowMe’s on the Landing (far too many steps) and let the grass keep on growing at home (push mower couldn’t be pushed). During the second week, I could keep up with the morning shift reporting to McDonalds. Two days before the race, I shoved my left foot into the riding boot and latched it up without a single expletive. This, I decided, was good enough for Sedalia.

With Matt Sellers handling driving duties, we arrived at the staging area to another warm, dry morning. Matt tends to plan well for racing accoutrements and packed a pop-up awning to shade us from the sun. I did manage to remember my comfy folding chairs (with footrests!) and placed them under the awning, now a pleasant lounging area next to the port-a-potties. Within the aroma of a hog farm, I stuffed my tender ankle into my left boot, grabbed a fistful of Advil and bolted for the practice lap. Gear shifting concerned me most, since my left foot would be responsible for raising or lowering the shifter lever several hundred times over the next few hours. Living in the middle of suburbia, I didn’t feel my neighbors would have appreciated testing my ankle during the week with sprints up and down Suffolk Avenue, so the Sedalia practice lap would determine my fitness.

The ankle, it turned out, was fine. The rest of my physical conditioning was not. I’d done little for two weeks except fiddle with the motorcycle in my garage during the hottest temperatures of the summer. These were the days I’d normally torture myself with after-work bicycle rides, but I was effectively grounded. My usual sprint through the practice lap left me completely worn out and I collapsed under the awning until riders began filling the starting line. I might have relaxed on those comfortable chairs the whole afternoon, but I came here to race, and race I would…for a while, anyway.

I staked out the shadiest spot on the starting line, which happened to put me on an inside track toward the first turn about 100 yards ahead. In typical MHSC fashion, the starting routine began with a man raising a pit board from a safe location in front of the rows of riders. Two numbers were visible, a “30” scribbled in small digits at the edge of the board, signaling 30 seconds until the start, and a much larger “15” centered at an angle. With engines silenced, riders gazed intently on the pit board, waiting for the holder to turn it 90 degrees and reveal the “15” displayed horizontally. The cry of “Fifteen seconds!” echoed across the open field as riders leaned forward, helmets above handlebars and elbows pushed high. The hushed tones of spectators blended with creaking leather boots and mechanical clicking as riders adjusted their kick starter positions. The eternity of this 15 seconds could only be matched by a spouse’s reaction to her husband’s proposal to buy a 4th dirt bike.

Deafening silence ended with the man out front dropping his signboard. About a second later, a flurry of motorcycles dashed forward. We paralleled the woods, then cut toward an opening in the trees and joined the marked trail. Steve Crews jumped out ahead and led me through this ATV portion of the course, where I searched for clean air and a place to improve my mid-pack position. During the week, light rain showers dampened the dust a bit, but with a tight pack of riders hammering down the first mile, limited visibility kept me from making any moves.

The wide trail branched off into several miles of new singletrack, at which point Steve and #237 Elson Moore both fell while slowing for the transition. I jumped in behind #76 Gary Mittelberg and did my best to keep him in sight and learn from his lines, but his smooth style on a Yamaha four-stroke was too much. He left me about the same time Elston caught and passed by after I lost balance exiting a gully. Chasing Elston reminded me of following my dad through a hardware store: His every move identical to mine. If ever existed my racing clone, Elston was it. His line choices, speed and determination matched mine, which made him difficult to pass. As a person, Elston was the kind of guy you’d want supervising an overhaul of your septic system, for his common sense, good nature, and ability to sniff out anyone’s bullcrap from a distance. I knew that he knew exactly where I’d attempt to pass, in a heavily-whooped creek bed now approaching ahead, and I was also aware of the velocity I’d need to put myself in front. This early in the race, the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze and Elston certainly didn’t hold me back, so I continued mirroring his lines through the course.

Surprisingly, my ankle help up well in the rocky terrain. Other than a few pointed foot-plants around sharp corners, the Advil did its thing as I continued to pursue Elston. Eventually the singletrack merged back into the ATV trails and we both picked up speed. About a mile from the scoring trailer, my right hand guard clipped a tree, knocking my fingers from the handlebars. Thus confirmed what I already knew well about trees: It’s usually not the first one that gets me. In a perfect world, I’d simply put my right hand back on the handlebar and continue down the trail. But the bike had now changed its trajectory, veering left toward more trees. At a healthy race pace over wide trails, I simply ran out of time to correct course. With one additional second, I might have steered clear of the bad mojo about to ruin my day.

When faced with panic, the mind tends to work quickly. I calculated in about half a second a 98% chance of hitting a tree head-on at about 20 mph. Believe me when I admit this isn’t the first time I faced those odds. But today I made a decision unlike any other.

I bailed.

In all my years on dirt bikes, I rode like a ship captain, always going down with the machine no matter the cost (see 1999 White City enduro). This time, I didn’t like the odds and chose to abandon my KTM 300MXC. I slid off the back seat and watched in horror as the bike changed course but I continued straight toward a 24-inch diameter tree. It could have been a sugar maple, maybe a burr oak or perhaps a locust. No matter the species, they all hurt at 20 mph, and this one was a full frontal body slam. Crumpled to the ground, breathing became difficult and the world around me suddenly quieted, much like the moment one meets his soul mate and the rest of the earth ceases to exist.

The moment didn’t last long. My ribs hurt. My legs ached. Even the family jewels were unhappy. Steve Crews passed by in a blur, and I gave him a thumbs up before I knew for sure if all my faculties remained intact. As I sat up and examined the pain, my motorcycle had completely disappeared. Matt Sellers flew by while I tested my important parts and decided I could begin searching for my bike.

Fifty feet ahead in a pile of bushy undergrowth, the KTM lie on its side, uninjured. I righted the bike, fired up the engine and gingerly finished the first lap. At the scoring trailer I briefly considered pulling out of the race, but then realized I felt amazingly good, despite body slamming a tree only minutes prior. I pointed the bike toward the trail arrows and casually took another lap around the course, then called it a day. One hour on the motorcycle felt right, so I parked my KTM beside Matt’s truck and lounged on a folding chair until he finished the race. By that time, my Advil high and adrenaline rush gave way to aches and pains. With another fistful of medication, we loaded the bikes, cranked up the air conditioning and cruised home. The next day I hobbled into work yet again, with another data point on how much this sport depends on half-inches.