In the late 1990s, the brotherly duo of Pat and Brian Garrahan burst onto the national enduro and hare scramble scene, winning races and describing the adventures on their website. Two weeks after the Westphalia round of the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC), Pat would write this about the Funky Chicken National Hare Scramble near Elkton, Oregon:
"Billy [Russell] is still getting used to the Hare Scramble starts and he learned something new at this race, turn your gas on before the race or your bike just may not start."
Substitute my name for Billy’s, and that pretty much sums up the Westphalia hare scramble (unlike myself, Billy would recover well, placing 6th place overall).
So allow me to restate the obvious: I am an idiot. A certified fool. I’d love to say forgetting to move the fuel petcock to the “On” position was a once-a-lifetime occurrence, but as the readers of these pages may remember from the Warrensburg, Missouri report last year, that is not the case. One may ask, why not simply leave the petcock alone after a practice lap? This surely guaranties the engine starts up and runs the entire race. To borrow my mother’s usual reply to questions without answers, “Because the egg was fried.”
This egg was beyond fried…more like burnt to a crisp. The 15-second board dropped and the others in my class vaulted forward, while I sat still as a quadriplegic on a park bench. At least, for a few seconds, I had company. Another racer remained on the starting line, kicking over his four stroke engine again and again. For this reason (among others) I swore I’d never own a kick-start thumper, but then again, his fuel freely flowed into the carburetor. Eventually the engine fired and he proceeded into the woods. I glanced down, realizing my mistake, then kicked the starter lever until the 30-second board displayed for the Senior class in the row behind. I dismounted, performed the dreaded Push of Shame and removed myself from the starting grid. Just after the Seniors departed, the KX250 finally came to life and I sprinted toward the trees.
As the woods approached, I entered while the last of the Senior class disappeared into the foliage. Like past races here, the motorcycle course shared much of the ATV route from yesterday and the layout followed a similar path as many previous events. Wide trails, high speeds and years of traffic beat up the terrain much like riders often describe of Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) events, where the Sunday afternoon race leaves riders bouncing across miles of choppy dirt and rocks. The KX250 suspension, revalved last year by W.E.R. Racing, handled these conditions admirably, even though I’d instructed Drew Smith to make both ends enduro-like plush.
The Scotts steering stabilizer kept the front end steady as I passed several Seniors. Near the midway point of the lap I spotted official MHSC scorekeeper Tom Eidam and moved by, then gazed in awe as Open B winner Dwayne Parish flew past with blazing speed in the wide trails.
After years of racing in similar terrain, I could handle Westphalia’s ATV trails by sliding comfortably in the loose rock from one track to the other. The trick was picking the right time to switch. The practice lap had already established certain switch-ups which wouldn’t change, but others remained open for debate. Speedier riders opined differently than slower riders on this opening lap, but over the next two hours a consensus would emerge. Soon, all riders would change lanes at all the same places.
Roughness aside, the rocky course held up well. My clutch hand, not as much. On the second lap a blister formed on my palm, then another on my middle finger. Without conscious effort, my brain informed my left hand to readjust for the pain. I didn’t realize how much this slowed my progress as I completed an otherwise uneventful lap. On the third lap, a few riders from the Senior class repassed me, including Tom Eidam. This wasn’t good.
From there, riders from the B classes caught up and I fell further behind. In an open pasture section, a B-class competitor on a four-stroke sprinted by with his throttle pinned. The throaty roar nearly blew out my eardrums. Dirt bike magazines often describe the exhaust note of a motorcycle in terms such as subdued, controlled, aggressive, or even thrilling. This motorcycle’s exhaust note might as well have been termed “dumb-ass dipshit” for the chilling effect its kind has on our ability to ride on other people’s land. The noise completely drowned out the sound of my own engine. My ears hurt as much as my clutch hand, and I actually slowed down to let the guy get out of my zone. The whole experience was #27 on the list of why I have no intention of ever owning a four-stroke dirt bike*.
The course roughened and the blisters grew. Welcome relief arrived in short sections of singletrack, but on wider and faster trails I just couldn’t maintain enough grip on the handlebars. By the fourth lap, the blistering on my left hand set a new record for pain and I finally had to admit defeat. Halfway through the lap, I backed off and inched through the course in mostly first gear, then called it a day at the scoring trailer. I pulled off my gloves and gasped at the sight of raw, bloody skin. The old KTM 300MXC never blistered me quite like this, but at least I knew where to double up on Band-Aids for future races on the KX250. And, perhaps, I’d bother to think a little more about the fuel petcock.
*Editor's note: Yes, I later ate these words with the purchase of a KTM 350XC-F in 2016. It was a short-lived experiment. Reason #1 (expensive to maintain) and #7 (too complicated) ended our relationship within a few brief years.
