Santa's Last Chance Enduro, December 11th

[the Eel]

December 11th ~ 9 AM start time

TWMC Outing - 1st annual Santa's Last Chance Enduro, at the Slash-X Café (near Barstow).

Directions:

Take I-15 north to Barstow (58 miles). Take a right on Barstow Road (also HWY 247), go about 10 miles out of town (toward Lucerne Valley), the Slash-X Café is on your right. You can't miss it, it's the only thing of substance between Barstow and Lucerne Valley. TWMC will be camped behind the Café.

I'll be out there early Sunday morning.

 

[2strok4fun]

Me too, early Sunday

 

[the Eel]

I discovered a big split in my carb boot on Saturday night - deal breaker. So how was the race ?

 

[kelsorat]

Drank too much at a Xmas party, couldn't get out of bed at 3am. Slept in.

 

[thumbs]

Myself, Julie and Bundy's clan went out on Saturday. I helped put on the Junior and Powder Puff race for Saturday. We laid out 3.5 miles of course for the kids. Julie and I worked the start/finish. Most participants had a good time but I think we has some areas where the sand was to soft for the small bikes like the 50's. Next time we will know better.

Diner at Slash-X was great. All you can eat ribs and chicken! Jennifer Smith put together a cool slide show with pictures from events throughout the year.....very cool. To bad the music didn't work.

Santa cruised in on Harley to give presents to the kids. Not sure what happened to his sled. Must be in the shop for repair. Anyhoot, the kids all had big smiles.

Sunday morning came along and I just didn't feel like racing so I helped Annie and Bernie at the start. After all 20 rows were gone I rode the first and last 3 miles of the coure on the Big Wheel. What a blast! Shannon did an awesome job in trail selection. Looked like a fun course for everyone.

Mid day Bundy and I took the kids on trail ride about 5 miles long as promised. Everyone had a good time and no diggers were taken.

Tim and Chris both showed up Sunday morning ready to ride. They were the last ones to take off on minute 20.

 

[2strok4fun]

It was fun. TWMC always seems to find the best trails an area has to offer. It was just Tim and I on 20. I had some puter glitch (Im stickin to that story) and managed to get myself ahead by 2 minutes, so I burned 2 of 4 checks on the first loop by 2 minutes each, so I will have a nice high score :) . Other than that, I had a good ride and at least I shredded in my own mind.

 

[Boodac]

Santa cruised in on Harley to give presents to the kids. Not sure what happened to his sled. Must be in the shop for repair.

I thought Santa always rode a Harley to deliver presents? You mean my parents have been lying to me all this time? :pissed:

 

[the Eel]

Bummed I missed the race .. .as usual it sounds like the Xmas Party was also a good time.

 

[2strok4fun]

Scores are up.

Tim got a 3.0051 for a 4th finish. :nod:

I got a 16.0238 for a 13th :rotfl:

 

[nonickname]

Another great outing. My daughter was one of the little ones on the 50's that was squirreling around in the sand. She must have fallen 20 times on the first loop, but she still wanted to go out for the second. I killed her race when I ran out of gas in the chase quad 2/3's of the way around the second loop. Thumbs came by pulling ribbon in a bit, and was nice enough to chase her to the finish while I waited for Ned to bring me some gas (and deliver a giant I-told-you-so, because he had told me the quad sounded empty beforehand). She was a trooper to keep going, and actually rode pretty good for her second ride without the training wheels.

The party and other festivities were great as well, and it was really nice to be back at the Slash again.

The course on Sunday was awesome. Tons of semi-virgin stuff that was a blast to ride. I had an attack of the stupids, and was throwing away seconds all day long (partly because they picked great check locations where they kept popping out of nowhere all day long). I saw that Timbo had a double-goose-egg going into the final loop, so I knew the only way I had a chance against him was to sneak into a special at the top of my minute, and maybe pick up a minute on him by the check-out. So I rode the last loop on the aggressive side of my minute, then brainfarted and burned a check. I knew that was race over at that point, so I kind of lost motivation. It was a cool extra mile of trail that he laid out for the special, finishing on a hill so we could spectate all of the other experts/masters struggle with the final near-vertical uphill section.

In all, an awesome job by Shannon and crew.

 

[thumbs]

Another great outing. My daughter was one of the little ones on the 50's that was squirreling around in the sand. She must have fallen 20 times on the first loop,

Sorry about that. Tell Grace that I her a root-beer float.

 

[nonickname]

Don't worry about it. She would have fallen 15 times without the sand. It's weird, when you're on a big bike, you don't even really notice when there's just a little bit of loose stuff on the trail (like on the main fireroad to the finish, I would have sworn that the p-dubs would be fine on that one). It's not until you watch the little ones ride it that you realize "wow, I guess that is a little loose after all". I did the same thing with the course I layed out last month. Oh well, makes em tougher...

 

[scar tissue]

The Barstow area is not usually my favorite place to ride, but this crew did a great job on the course. Several twists and turns through rocks, sand, and brush. There were several turns that I thought just shouldn’t be there. It was a good, fun layout. :cool: The splits were great as you got to challenge the Novice and up guys to some tough but not impossible one line sections, and the novice X guys got to go around. This is a great idea. It was a time keeper as the speeds were manageable and they had some of the best hidden checks I’ve ever seen. The check crews would pop out of nowhere, giving very little if any scrub time and space. I did really well until loop 3 when I got a nail in the rear tire. I had to ride the special speed test boulder section on the flat and picked up 3 minutes. I was really happy to get 4th out of 17 in my class after not riding at all in 3 months. (Coaching soccer for my son's team.) Plus as a bonus, I passed the other crew members in my class for points for the year. :) Overall, I had a great time and this was a perfect way to round out the year.