Steelville, Missouri

Like any travel to places far from home, there’s a certain routine to packing for a motorcycle race, not unlike the couple dozen times a year I pack a suitcase for business trips. I drive to the airport along the same highways, park in the same place at the Lambert Airport parking garage and check in at my usual service counter. Likewise, a couple dozen times a year I load the dirt bike into my pickup truck the same way, pack the same riding gear in the same sports bag, place my tool box and bike stand and fuel jugs in the same spot behind the cab and then drive to a race or a practice area. One would think, after years of these same routines, I would never overlook anything important, whether a business trip or a motorcycle ride. And yet I still find ways to forget things.

At a gas station in the town of Steelville, 20 minutes from the race site, I filled my fuel jug and stretched my stiff legs with a stroll around the backside of the truck and wouldn’t you know it, my eyes glanced at a noticeable void in the normal spot occupied by a Rubbermaid plastic storage container which housed my helmet, gloves, goggles and Camelbak drink system.

Oh, for the love of Jesus.

Some things forgotten can be improvised. Others aren’t totally necessary to begin with. The items in the Rubbermaid storage container were neither unnecessary nor capable of improvisation, so there I sat, checking my watch and performing mental math. If I turned around and drove like hell to my house, then turned around again and sped just as quickly back to Steelville, I might just make it to the race site in time to register.

Which is exactly what I did.

The thing about backtracking to Interstate 44 with a motorcycle-laden pickup truck, clearly loaded for a hare scramble, is that it really messes with the minds of those driving toward the race. An oncoming driver, similarly equipped for racing, witnessed my odd direction and signaled the universal Shrug of Confusion. I replied with the standard “Don’t-look-at-me-I’m-an-idiot” hand gesture, which only added to his perplexity. However, I sensed this gentleman possessed the self-confidence to trust his instincts and continue following the 8-word driving directions printed in the official 2002 Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship event schedule.

Fast forward three hours, and there I stood in front of Steve Weible, about 2 minutes from pulling the plug on the electronic registration. Those hours had been spent in an anxious mental haze which continued all through the dash to unload the bike, throw on my riding gear and sprint to the starting line. I made it, along with a couple hundred other racers ready to take in a gorgeous Sunday on dirt bikes in the woods. The event was billed as the last race to be held at this location, after 20 consecutive years on the series schedule.

This last dance felt remarkably similar to my three visits prior, with a course laid out similarly across Central Missouri hill country. A large grassy valley, full of green and surrounded by a leafless forest, hosted a multitude of trucks and trailers as far as the eye could see. Steelville had always been a popular venue and so good a moneymaker that the MHSC’s pending transition from bar code scoring to RFID transponders would be paid for by a generous donation from the Nasty Creek hosting club.

If ever a time was ripe to finally have a good race here, I pretty much blew it with my Rubbermaid debacle. On the starting line I was tight and nervous and hadn’t a practice lap to work out the pre-race angst. Most of the 22 other riders in the Open B class would know exactly what to expect on the first lap, although after two decades of races here, the Steelville course wasn’t much of a mystery. When the green flag waved our class into a long, open field, I aimed my KTM 300EXC towards a familiar creek which led into the woods.

Surprisingly, my start was a good one, and I found myself following Keith Kibort and Dave Gerbes (a/k/a “Davey”) near the front of the class. We fell in line with a group of riders packed together in a conga line of weaving motorcycles performing a delicate yet turbulent dance, straddling a thin line between a ballroom foxtrot and a Henry Rollins mosh pit. On the one hand, guiding a front tire into a three inch wide rail of a curve which places a motorcycle on a perfect apex is ballroom-like precision, unmatched in exhilaration and gratification. On the other hand is whooped-out rocky terrain, ridden at speeds requiring a rider to relentlessly slam his motorcycle into the face of jagged earth, over and again. That part is pure aggression. At Steelville, it was the ragged edge separating control from misfortune, and the winners would push within a gnat’s eyeball toward that fine line.

My philosophy was a bit more subdued, although any form of racing at Steelville is far from restrained. The first lap showed me again why rear tires are usually discarded afterwards. This is not a place you’d want to explore with bare feet. The angular composition of the rocks reminded me of the scene in the move Castaway, where Tom Hanks learns the hard way about stepping on coral reefs. If tires could be bloodied, here was the place. As I maintained a close distance to Keith and Dave, the wide parts of the trail shared with the ATV course were unsuitable for passing, with gravelly stones offering little traction through the corners. I could drag race the two men through a straight section, but once I leaned the bike into a turn, the front wheel simply slid across the rocks. My only hope was passing in the slower, technical trails where a smart line would put me in front.

Rather than work my mind and pass intelligently, I chose the mosh pit philosophy and, like a raver on amphetamines, charged up a long hill to overtake Mr. Gerbes. I soon realized I was heading for a rock about the size of a truck tire. With a sharp cut toward the inside of the rock, I not so politely pushed Dave out of the way. Soon after, I stalled my bike in a tight, rocky trail and he passed me much more courteously. We traded positions two more times on the second lap, the last of which saw Dave catching his second wind and flying by at Warp Factor 9, in full view of the staging area, at which point I never saw him again.

The Steelville course is known for its length, and my 40+ minute lap times put me on a pace for only three trips through the woods. With Dave’s pass near the end of lap two, I checked into the scoring trailer in 4th position. The Open B class remained tightly spaced, with only a few minutes separating the top 10 riders. One small mistake by anyone could shake up the standings, and that anyone proved to be me. Out in the off-camber trails carved into side hills, I struggled up a climb and hit a tree, leaving the nose of the bike pointed down the slope. It’s an unenviable task pulling a 250-pound motorcycle back on a trail, outfitted in boots with little traction, but I had no other option. The tugging and jerking was purely an exercise in upper body strength, and these predicaments existed as the sole reason I began lifting weights many years ago. If only I had understood the benefits of a high-protein diet, I might have spent less time thrusting the KTM onto a narrow patch of dirt more suitable for mountain goats. Eventually I was on my way, two spots further back in the class standings.

The long lap ended without any further mishaps or lost positions, but my 6th place finish was certainly a disappointment. Sometimes the tone of the race is set before one even sets a wheel on the starting line, and today was that sort of day. Many more rounds of the MHSC series remained, but Steelville did little for my title hopes. Perhaps, I thought on the drive home, I should develop a racing checklist. Then I remembered how well I learn from my mistakes, and how unlikely my forgetfulness would be repeated in the future. There would be no need for lists of any kind.

Cue eerie foreshadowing music...