My Enduro Season

I have always enjoyed reading Jay's race reports so I figured that I would put my season into words.

This years Blackjack schedule consisted of 9 rounds with your best 6 counting toward your overall score.

I missed round 1 (White Rock) because of work so my season started at Lead Belt in Park Hills, MO. This year it was a two day ISDE qualifier that that counted as two rounds for our series. Craig_enid and I drove to this one getting there late meeting an already there crash n burn who was nice enough to let us dive into his tent and catch a couple hours of shut eye. The weather was absolutely beautiful until about 15 minutes before the start and then it started raining and did not stop for the next two days. I had never ridden an event with ISDE rules but the rain pretty much turned it into a 5 hour hare scramble. I was happy with the way I rode considering the conditions but houred out around mile 65. I was told of this at a road crossing and my initial thoughts were YES! I mean darn. As I was sitting there talking to the course workers one of the guys said at least your still smiling. It was brutally hard but I still had fun. By the time I made it back to camp I didn't feel like doing anything to the bike, I just wanted dry clothes and something to eat.

Lead Belt day 2
A lot of people opted out of day two either heading home or deciding to get a work average. It was a long drive up and I never know how many events I am going to be able to make so there was no way I wasn't riding. They ended up changing the course and the first loop had a lot of sand and ended up being a blast to ride. The second loop sent us right back into the previous days route and it was brutal. I got stuck on a hill that took three tries to make but not before I broke my rear fender and sub frame in two places. (loop out!) There was a section of trail that ran us straight down the creek that was all rock bottom with a couple of water falls. I had no problems with it on day one but it was much deeper this time and I hit a rock that I couldn't see and went down sucking water into the engine. The crash probably never would have happened if I hadn't been so worn out but my noodle arms didn't stand a chance this time. I pulled the filter and squeezed the water out of it. Pulled the carb and cleaned it, pulled the plug, turned the bike upside down and pushed the kick starter through its stroke a couple of time and then tried starting the bike. No luck. By now I knew that I had houred out so I decided to wait for the sweep crew and then took the ride of shame back to camp in the back of a pick up truck. Even though day 1 went much better I did better point wise on day two. Craig and I headed for home with me feeling pretty good about my weekend but knowing that I had a lot of work to get the bike ready for round 4.

to be continued.....

Round 4 Hardwood
After spending the next couple of days doing nothing more than going to work and then going home and straight to bed I started cleaning things up and figuring out what I needed to order for the bike. As I was working on the bike I got to thinking about the guys who ride the ISDE and all of the preparation that is required to compete for 6 days in a row, being your own mechanic and only having small time slots to take care of things on top of being fast and in shape. Before long round 4 was coming up and the bike wasn't ready. New reeds, front and rear brake pads, rear rotor, front and back wheel bearings were needed not to mention the linkage needed grease. I finally had it back together Saturday afternoon, loaded the bike and headed to the gas station only to find that my left fork seal was leaking and had puked oil all over my new brake pads. Back to the house I went to spray it down with brake cleaner and film to get the seal clean. I think it was about 11:30 when I finally got to Hardwood. The next morning at sign up I find out that I have two newbies on my row that were told that I was a good time keeper and that they could follow me. We take off and I immediately can tell that my bike is running like crap and my freshly oiled front brake isn't working very well. The first section is 15mph and we end up being late at the very first check! Every down hill I was having to pull in the clutch and blip the throttle to keep the bike running I ended up making a couple of bonehead moves on time keeping not only ruining my day but the scores of the other two guys on my row. It was a race to forget. After getting home I checked my air screw only to see that it was all the way closed. After adjusting it the bike ran great! I assumed that the new reeds were what was throwing the jetting off. Would have been nice to have been smart enough to have checked it at the first reset instead of suffering through and entire race.

Round 5 Trainrobbers
This was the first time that for me to go to this location and I got there no problem early afternoon on Saturday. It was hot, miserable hot and I was sleeping in my tent. That night a storm rolled in. Rain, wind and lots of lightning. I was laying there in the tent waiting for someones toy hauler to blow over on me but it never happened. There were a couple of down drafts that flattened my tent on me. I imagine that I looked like a vacuum packed piece of food in my tent while that was going on. We ended up not getting that much rain and the temperatures were actually pretty reasonable but the humidity was high and I ended up having to pitch my goggles early on. Once again I was struggling with my riding and it probably took a good 10 miles for me to get going. There was a guy on my row that would get away from me then I would catch back up, make a mistake, he would get away. This scenario went on for a while and I got frustrated and tried to make a pass on a section of gravel road. Just about the time I was going to make the pass the trail turned back off and I couldn't get slowed down enough and plowed into him as he made the turn crashing pretty hard right onto my tail bone. Several minutes passed with me laying there trying to convince myself that I was okay before I got going again. Turned out just to be a bruise but I had lost my MOJO for the day.

I wasn't feeling very good about my season so far but knew that I still had four rounds to pull it together.

Round 6 Golden Eagle
We are allowed to work one race and receive points equal to a win so being a club member I always feel obligated. Saturday was over 100 degrees but a front came in giving us some much needed rain and cooler temperatures. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Wish I could have raced this one and worked another.

to be continued.......

Round 7 Wolf's Den
I was excited about this one. It was a new location and it was close to home. We had a full row with Craig_end, gorp(Bryan) and Jason Williams. Jason has been riding with us in Stillwater for a while, but this was going to be his first enduro. It ended up raining a couple of inches the night before the race and even though all four of us had computers mine was the only one that decided to work. Bryan hasn't had much seat time for recently but we had some great battles in Vet C two years ago (I think I finished within 19 seconds on him at White Rock that year) so just having him there had me fired up. Jason decided to just follow me and learn. He would make a mistake letting me get away and then catch back up. This happened over and over until I finally broke free from him on the second lap and never saw him again. I have never been a crasher but went down 6 times that I can remember. There were some spots that were really slick but then there also were some sand sections that were absolutely perfect. I was happy with the way I rode and the results showed. I finished second Overall B and the guy who beat me wasn't a Blackjack member so I received maximum points for this one.

Round 8 Indian Nations (Scipio)
I have had always seemed to do well at this place so I felt confident at the start. Craig and Jason were on my row, it had rained but this place handles rain well. Rocks are rocks wet or dry. Jason was once again following me and it went about like Wolf's den with him staying with me almost the entire time. I guess I finally figured out how to make my goggles work in wet conditions as I had ridden four previous rounds where I had to give up on them. This one was pretty uneventful and I was happy with the way I rode with the exception of taking too long to get back on the course for the third loop. I finished third and was only three minutes behind first place in my class.

Round 9 Crosstimbers
After the last round I had a 7 point lead in Overall B so I knew that as long as nothing crazy happened that the title would be mine. Chuck Cooper, Jason and Craig were on my row. This place has clay soil very similar to my usual riding area but was still slick early on from the two inches of rain that they had gotten earlier in the week. I was glad to have Chuck there as he is fast as hell so I could concentrate on riding and forget about time keeping. Well long story short my chain broke at mile 9 1/2 and my race was over. Craig stopped and tried to help but my chain was all balled up between the shifter and counter shaft sprocket. All his helpfulness made him three minutes late to the next check. I felt sick. All I could do was wait for a tow back to camp and hope that my closest competitor didn't have a good day. Jason rides here a lot and had a great day. I'm not sure that I would have had anything for him even if my chain had not broken.

As we were pulling into Stillwater Craig called and said that he was siting at his computer and the results were up and that I had won Overall B by 5 points, the title was mine. Woo Hoo! Comparing my results to the guys who ended up in 2nd and 3rd for the year we all had a 25 point work average, our second and third best scores were almost identical. What made the difference was my next two best scores. I was never the fastest guy out there but was more consistent. Next year A Class!

By the way Craig finished 2nd in C45+ and was 4th Overall C. Good job Craig_enid!

Thanks, I haven't been contacted by any of the magazines for interviews and have had no requests to test my championship winning bike so I am pretty sure that I am still a nobody!

Speed wise I am miles away from being AA. All it takes is a day on the trail with Chuck Cooper to reinforce that, runs me down like a mangy dog.

crashnburn said:

Congrats on moving up, will try to run more blackjack next year, going to buy a computer at tax time, work schedule permitting will see if I can manage to keep the B class overall in the Spode family. Looked for your results at almosta didn't see ya, what happened?

Click to expand...

Thanks, glad to see your planning on running the series next year. The weather and a stiff lower back along with no one to share fuel with was enough to make to make me wimp out on almosta race.

Still on the gasgas. I have it dialed in and am afraid that it would be hard to find something that I like any better. Guess I will enjoy it for another year.

Hey Dan, it's been a while! Craig has been trying to get me to go to a west Texas enduro for a couple of years now. I'm going to try not to worry about points too much this year, so if work allows it this would be a good year to go. Unfortunately I now live another 2 hours farther away. (practically in Kansas)