Earlier this month, regular riding buddy Matt Sellers traveled to the Georgia hinterlands and bought fast guy Mike Grizzle’s 6-month-old KTM 450EXC. Apparently Matt’s itch for long drives didn’t wear off in time for the White Rock Enduro, as he lobbied for an extended trek to his first-ever enduro in Northwest Arkansas. I’m always game for road trips, especially when they involve college towns, cheap motels and someone else driving, so I threw our pre-entry forms in the old school postal mail and made plans for an old school enduro weekend in Razorback country.
The Razorback Riders motorcycle club allowed us to request rows within a certain range on the starting grid, based on personal preferences. Most riders prefer rows above 20 and lower than 40, which ensures the course will be beaten down by earlier riders and easier to navigate, but not so thrashed that all rocks are exposed and the suspension bounces off every chopped up rut. Matt’s White Rock proposal came just ten days ahead of the race, and with such a late entry our likelihood of ending up on the same row in our preferred range would be approximately zero. This brought two options: Request an early row or a late row. Neither choice is ideal, although both come with certain advantages. Matt didn’t care much either way, so I asked for an early row, as past experience on late rows usually involved more tradeoffs. Marrietta, Illinois in 1999 was a classic example, when I houred out just five miles into a ridiculously waterlogged course. Sure, I could read the trail quite easily after a hundred riders tore it to shreds and left me a continuous 12-inch rut (longest two hours of my life). Conversely, the 1996 Summer Bummer enduro at Roselawn, Indiana had me on an early row during what I believe was the last of the infamous Swamp Years, and I was blessed to navigate the deep muck before 200 other riders really messed it up (and yet I still managed to bury the bike in a 3-foot rut). Usually these advance requests for preferred rows are granted as much as the club is able, but our assigned row number would only be revealed when we arrived at the staging area in the White Rock Mountain recreational area.
Meantime, Matt and I joined up with Edwardsville, Illinois enduro specialist Kevin Betts, active this year in the BlackJack Enduro Circuit (BJEC). No stranger to long road trips, Kevin competed two weeks prior in the muddy Zink Ranch Enduro near Sand Springs, Oklahoma. He offered to drive and haul our bikes in his enclosed trailer, while I furnished my house as a rendezvous point and Matt added 6 hours (each way) of analysis on nuclear-generated electricity. Perhaps I exaggerate, but the guy knows his stuff and it’s a whole lot better than 6 hours talking corporate banking (of which we spoke exactly zero seconds, thank goodness). After loading up, we journeyed through the lively town of Branson, Missouri before arriving at Fayetteville, home of the University of Arkansas. My stellar navigation skills guided us first to Springdale, just north of Fayetteville and home of Tyson Foods, where we took a small detour and stumbled upon the meat behemoth’s world headquarters. With my agribusiness curiosity satisfied, we refocused on settling in at the Super 8 motel and sleeping restfully.
Sunday morning, on scene at the staging area, Matt and I discovered my wish for an early row had been granted. Our names appeared on Row 1, the earliest of the early. Fast guy Jerry Hemann, an occasional Missouri hare scrambler, joined us. Kevin Betts secured row 30, departing a half-hour behind. We geared up quietly in the cool Arkansas morning, taking in the Ozark Mountains at sunrise. As we left the trailer to line up for the start, we said our goodbyes to Kevin, who wouldn’t be seen again until the end of the race.
The Razorback Riders set up the staging area in a picturesque valley, complete with meadow and stream, and established an 8:00 a.m. keytime. The BJEC series prefers to get the motorcycles moving early in the morning and allow its long-traveling riders a chance to return home before clocks move into tomorrow. Even with a relatively short commute from the Super 8, this was a bit early for me, but I’d prepared the bike well and simply threw on my riding kit to begin my day in the dirt.
With an old school roll chart and digital clocks attached to the handlebars, I led Matt across a wooden bridge over a creek and to the front of the starting line. Tens of bikes and their riders in all manner of colorful gear crowded near a medium-sized flag which marked the official Mile Zero. My KTM 300MXC, now a designated enduro bike, would carry me through the trails today. I didn’t plan to compete in the BJEC or any other enduro-centric series, so whatever misfortunes the troublesome KTM might bring wouldn’t matter as much. This year I’d focus once again on the Missouri Hare Scrambles Championship (MHSC) and muster the more reliable Kawasaki KX250 for that duty. The KTM, with its headlight and taillight and odometer, made a better equipped enduro bike, and its 300cc two-stroke engine let me ride a little lazy when the race wore on. I’d even sorted out the painfully harsh front suspension by installing a do-it-yourself re-valve kit. With chilly fingers crossed, I warmed the engine on the starting line, nervously anticipating my first race of the 2004 season.
While the minutes counted down to our departure, I eyeballed a metal signpost on which numbered flip cards dangled. A club member stood within arm’s reach, turning over the cards to show the minutes remaining until Matt and Jerry and I would depart…if Jerry ever showed up. Three minutes to go, the flip cards displayed “03” and Jerry finally joined us on the first row. My engine idled while the cards gradually revealed lower numbers until “00” appeared. The pair of small, rectangular digital clocks taped to my handlebars, one for regular use and the other for backup, turned over to 8:00 at the same time and I wondered why the course marshals hadn’t released us onto the trail.
A minute later the flip card guy arranged “01” on the signpost, signaling the start of our race. We launched forward and traveled in formation, following arrows through wide, rocky ATV trails. Our casual pace matched the route sheet’s instructions to maintain an 18 mph speed average, where steady 3rd and 4th gear speeds might actually put us ahead of schedule, even for a rock-challenged dirt biker like me. We cruised through the first 8 miles and assumed our primary Row 1 duty of clearing out loose rocks and splashing water from ruts. Only a rare racer believes he’ll win an enduro being first out on the course, and neither Matt nor Jerry nor I possessed such confidence, so we took in the trails and performed our jobs knowing we’d help burn in the route for the rest of the riders.
At 18 mph, 3rd gear was about as fast as I could comfortably run without risking a burned check, where the punishment for early arrival can be up to five times worse than showing up late. I pondered the math involved in these old school enduros and the disincentives for riding certain sections as fast as possible, remaining convinced the arcane rules of enduro were invented by smart, slow dirt bikers who grew tired of losing to naturally speedy racers. Absent a specialized enduro computer, traveling at a prescribed average speed required constant mental calculations. Dirt bike racing plus math…what could possibly go wrong?
A lot of things, actually, and I was about to discover one of them.
But thus far, our trio of Row 1 riders simply cruised through the ATV trails, awaiting the first timed checkpoint. None appeared in the wide trails, and after the course narrowed into winding singletrack, I suspected we’d see one soon. I paused to confirm my clocks and odometer matched up with the mileage and times on the roll chart, then darted into a tight forest of cedar trees. Shifting down into second gear, I knew I’d struggle to maintain the 18 mph average, but past experience suggested I might have a chance to arrive at this trail section’s checkpoint within the allotted 60-second window and not drop points. That is, of course, if my clocks had been set properly. Back on the starting line, I’d compared my display to Jerry Hemann’s fancy ICO Checkmate enduro computer and found a 45-second discrepancy. Jerry didn’t consider himself an enduro expert and hadn’t yet mastered the ICO programming, so we shrugged off the difference and planned to figure it out later.
And that we did.
As expected, a checkpoint appeared shortly into the singletrack. Jerry and I arrived 10 seconds early, dropping two unnecessary points. Matt the Enduro Virgin lagged just far enough behind to zero the check like a pro. Clearly my clocks were off, but I didn’t understand the timekeeping error…yet.
And somehow, inexplicably, I was designated Chief Timekeeper for our trio of enduro-challenged dirt bikers. Jerry and I weren’t acquainted, and he could be forgiven for delegating the most important part of enduro racing, but Matt knew well enough not to trust me over a guy with a $400 enduro computer.
After a reset, the singletrack merged with wider, easier trails for most of the rest of the first and shortest loop. A mile or so before the staging area, we entered the same trail where we began the enduro nearly an hour before. At the riders meeting, the trail boss had warned of two-way traffic in this short section, and sure enough, a motorcycle climbed the hill as we descended. After narrowly avoiding a collision, we diverted into an extremely tight section of saplings near a creek beside the staging area. I sensed these trees might cost a point or two by the time the loop ended, but when we forded the creek and arrived at the timed checkpoint, I dropped no points. The timekeeping mystery thickened.
We refueled at Kevin’s trailer, grabbed a snack and began the longest loop of the day. By now I’d re-familiarized myself with the KTM after the orange machine sat idle in my garage for most of the past 6 months. With an enduro computer and a spark arrestor, the KX250 would have been a worthy ride today, since the entire course never touched a public road. But in the coming years I’d find that even with a computer, converted motocross bikes just aren’t ideal for enduros. The KTM turned slower and delivered power differently, but it did what enduro bikes do best: Grind through 70 miles of rocks, trees, hills and creeks without ruining the rider for the whole next week.
The second loop warmed us up with two miles of 18 mph trails, then sent us into deeper woods with 9 miles of mostly singletrack. As the course narrowed, the speed average climbed to 24 mph. I let Jerry lead through the tight stuff, well aware a Pro class hare scrambler would be quickly bored if I went in first. I will say, for the record, my radiator shrouds remained intact while Jerry’s right shroud was half the size it should have been. An earlier incident reduced it considerably, but that didn’t affect his speed whatsoever. Inside the singletrack, Jerry pulled away and remained in my sight just long enough to witness him crash. He remounted while I passed by, his left radiator shroud now nearly as destroyed as the right.
Jerry caught up quickly but dialed down his speed enough for us to remain together a few more miles. Arrows pointed toward a logging road, where we raced ahead and gained back some time lost in the woods. Jerry pulled alongside, motioning what I thought was a question of how we were doing on time. Using my excellent charade talents, I signaled that we should keep on rolling since we were running perfectly on schedule. Eventually he came to a stop and suggested that since we hadn’t seen arrows in over a mile, we just might be a bit off course. Yes, arrows…pretty important when traveling inside a vast forest. We backtracked and located the trail markers, losing several minutes in the process. By this time we expected Matt was now well ahead of us and were dismayed not to see him at a lengthy reset a few miles later. He had surely continued on, thinking that as long as he didn’t get ahead of us, he wouldn’t burn any checks.
I rested with Jerry at the reset until my clocks suggested we should move along. A “check-in” checkpoint awaited us shortly after, and once again we arrived a minute early. Shortly after the check, we found Matt stopped on the trail and explained our course detour. As we feared, he read the arrows properly and became the leader of our row while we backtracked. Matt didn’t know about the reset, didn’t see us ahead, and continued into the woods. He burned the check by nearly 15 minutes.
The next 20 miles had us maintain an 18 mph average through the tallest hills I’d ever seen on a dirt bike. The ascent pushed us up a soggy logging road, gaining about 500 feet of elevation while we splashed through standing water. Spring hadn’t yet sprung in Arkansas, and every puddle dampened my gloves and numbed my fingers. At the summit we zoomed across a ridge clearing and I quickly forgot about my frigid digits. The elevation revealed an amazing view of the Ozark Mountains. I wouldn’t have described these large hills as mountains, at least not in the same category of Appalachians or Black Hills, until we began a series of climbs and descents. Now the hills began to feel like the Rockies. Unlike typical Midwest geography, where creeks and rivers carve out steep but short gradients, the Ozarks seemed to rise and fall forever.
All along these wide trails, the forest service had worked desperately to prevent erosion by constructing water breaks channeling the flow of rain. For a motorcycle, the regularly spaced ridges became manmade jumps. On the way up, I could blindly launch the KTM over a water break and have no idea on what I’d land. Going down, the amount of liftoff was a matter of speed. How far I wanted to send the bike over the water breaks only depended on the size of my pelotas.
The 18 mph average finally increased to 24 mph during the last 5.4 miles of the short course. These miles repeated a section we’d already ridden to finish out the first loop. Jerry and I pushed hard, with Matt close behind, on terrain similar to St. Joe State Park: Fast, wide, and full of rocks. I charged through these last miles as fast and aggressively as I am humanly capable, arrived at the final checkpoint a minute late, then regrouped with Jerry at the staging area. He casually mentioned that our pace through the previous 5 miles was just under what it takes to get seriously injured. From a Pro class rider, I took that as a compliment.
Fifty miles down.
We refueled a second time and tracked arrows to the third and final loop of the day, a 25-mile affair with a 24 mph speed average. Dirt roads guided us back toward the dense White Rock forest, where Jerry jumped in front and paced himself a bit further ahead of schedule than I was comfortable. I backed off and let him disappear from sight. Once inside the woods, the trail stretched out wide and fast. This terrain, made famous by Brian Jahelka’s overnight excursion and near death experience, defied expectations and there I was, sprinting to the first checkpoint.
And sprint I did, reaching the check right on time (Jerry hurried a little too much and burned the check). Matt remained just behind, while Jerry slowed enough for us both to catch up. The Row 1 Trio remained close for some time, then Jerry again found his groove and pulled away. The growl of Matt’s new 4-stroke eventually faded and I found myself alone in the woods.
The Razorback Riders gave us the best of White Rock in these final 25 miles. The hills steepened, the rocks became rockier, and the water breaks increased in frequency. Fifteen miles from the finish, I bounced around a corner and stared straight up a large hill, like so many I’d already scaled, except this one caught my eye for its two features: A rock ledge midway up and a large crowd of spectators lining both sides of the trail. Out in the woods, the only other humans I’d seen to this point were checkpoint workers. If there’s one sure thing about enduros, I can say with 100% certainty that the only reason a throng of onlookers would trudge through a vast forest, perching themselves along a rocky hillside, is to witness carnage. Like 80% of NASCAR fans, they’re in it for the crashes and willing to make sacrifices to be there.
Near the bottom of the hill, I twisted the throttle and let the big 300cc engine launch the bike upwards. Thus far the crowd had seen only Jerry Hemann, who probably gave them nothing but a clean ride to the top, and eagerly awaited a less skilled rider.
That rider was me.
A couple dozen men and women lined the 12 inch rock ledge, which approached quickly and left about half a second to commit to a strategy. On flat ground, the ledge would have been a tiny blip on my list of “Do you remember that…?” after the race, but the steep angle of attack vaulted this obstacle into a conversation starter. In terms of strategy, I could go left or right or straight up the middle. Left seemed best, so I steered to the side, nearest the trees. In went the clutch lever, around circled the throttle tube, out popped the clutch, up rose the front wheel and over launched the KTM across the ledge. Pretty good so far, right?
The landing did me in. The center of the bike came to rest on top of a boulder, bringing all motion to a stop. My feet dangled around the rear of the motorcycle, on the downside of the ledge where my legs couldn’t reach the trail. I ejected myself and let the poor KTM fend for itself.
As the right handguard smacked against solid rock, the sound of the impact drew reaction from the crowd. The bike lay on its side, front wheel over the ledge and rear wheel not quite there. I yanked the orange machine off the ledge and glanced behind, where Matt observed from the bottom of the hill. He paused while I re-aimed for the right side of the ledge. Cheering spectators roared with approval when I cleared the ledge on the second attempt. Close behind, Matt’s engine surged and died. Without looking back, I assumed he stalled his engine while negotiating the climb, but photos would later show he fell over before even making it to the ledge.
Meanwhile, boulder by boulder, I charged to the top of this long, precipitous hill. By now I could have easily retired in the comfort of Kevin Betts’ pickup truck, but the Razorback Riders saved the worst for last. The next couple of miles punished riders with rocks, big and small and otherwise. Through here the KTM proved itself a worthy enduro bike, allowing me to ride like a wimp and still chug like a Big Boy. My race mercifully ended at about the 70-ground-mile mark, where Jerry Hemann waited. We headed back to the staging area on the same trail we’d already ridden twice, thinking we were surely lost. We continued following the arrows for nearly 5 miles until we finally arrived at the creek crossing near the staging area.
Matt showed up several minutes later clutching his left hand. Somewhere after the infamous Spectator Hill, he fell and would later discover he broke the end of his thumb. Due to our many timekeeping mistakes, neither of us had a chance for a decent finish. We waited for Kevin’s return, packed up and began the long drive home.
When the BJEC website posted results a few days later, I realized my critical timekeeping mistake. My clock was set a minute early. I had disregarded the oldest rule of enduro: Subtract your row number from the minute displayed on the keytime clock. Somehow I thought being on row 1 meant no adjustments to keytime. My results showed early arrivals at four of the nine checkpoints. At two of those four checks I was two minutes early. I had failed in my duty as Chief Timekeeper, but the race itself was a winner. On the drive home, I fell asleep to the soothing tone of Matt Sellers’ voice, describing the finer points of nuclear engineering.
Editor's Note: Three months later, Jerry Hemann's life would be cut short at St. Joe State Park, during its annual March of Dimes hare scramble. On June 27, 2004 he crashed at high speed on a dusty course and died from his injuries.
Godspeed, Jerry.
