Spokane Spring Mud Fling

[SpeedyManiac]

Any DRN'ers going to the Spring Mud Fling in Spokane, WA this weekend? Should be a fun race!

I'll be there (along with a bunch of other Canucks). Look for #26 on a yellow GasGas, or maybe #348 on a red GasGas (depends which bike I bring).

 

[bbbom]

Hey SpeedyManiac! Thanks again for partnering with me at the MudFest! Did you get your bike cleaned up yet? All of our bikes and muddy gear are still in the truck, hopefully we'll get it all out and washed off sometime this week.

What fun it was. I'm working on a ride report, hope to have it done, complete with some pics later this week.

 

[bbbom]

It was a beautiful day as we headed down the driveway to the 3 hour tag team harescramble (Karl was going snowmobiling, he's a bit smarter than Pat and I as you will see)

I showed up without a partner, Josh, the owner's son told me I did NOT want to ironman this one. The sign up lady said some guy on a Gas Gas 250 was looking for a partner, but another dude said he would track him down to partner with him. So I didn't sign up, told the signup lady that if anyone was looking for a partner send them my way. Got an offer to ride with a guy but I wasn’t sure I really really wanted to ride my newly rebuilt bike. Ran into Jason Seehorn, he told me that there was a guy looking for a partner because that guy was going to ride with the guy Jason hooked up with. Asked Jason what he looked like, what was he riding, what was he wearing, where was he - duh I dunno, he wasn't naked though was all Jason COULD tell me. (MEN don’t remember what other guys look like apparently ). :coocoo:

So I wandered down towards where Pat had parked our truck at the very end of the pitrow, stopped to chat with everyone I knew along the way. A lady came up to me "Are you the lady looking for a partner?" "Well, yeah." "My son needs a partner, he was going to ironman it but decided since he hadn't ridden in 4 months and just rebuilt his bike from when it seized at the Chile ISDE he wanted to partner." "Hmmmmm, let's talk!" :applause: So we went down to the sign up table and found her son. I told him we could do Jack & Jill or Heavyweight because I was on a CR500. He thought Jack & Jill sounded good, then he asked if I was on dirtrider.net. Um yep, I'm bbbom. He laughed because as he said, not many people ride CR500's and he is SpeedyManiac from dirtrider. He's been posting on there almost as long as I have. And he was the guy on the Gas Gas 250 that the other guy was looking for. Cool and he was already parked down at the end close to us to they just moved into our pit, him & his parents. I introduced him to my son’s buddies and our pit crew, my son had two other buddies racing besides him & his partner and their parents were there to help pit.

Speedymaniac, opted to forgo the parade lap because he figured he'd have plenty of time to get covered in mud. I did the parade lap but hung back to avoid the big clusters and roost.

Track was slimey with standing water in all low spots, mud everywhere, some frozen rutted sections and more mud. I mean there was mud EVERYWHERE, with ice underneath all the waterholes and some waterholes were huge, others not so bad. I figured out that most of the waterholes weren't too bad so I was passing people through the water. Goggles were useless so went without them.

I started, it was a dead engine start but at least we didn't have to straddle the front fender this time, I would have fallen on my butt if I'd had to do that. It took 3 kicks to fire the 500 up – grrr, it always starts first kick! I almost caught the other Jack & Jill team that I knew until I got stuck behind a pile up in a mudhole. I felt good the first lap, the new piston in the 5hunny was giving him all kinds of power and the new fork springs were working. I tagged Steve off, grabbed some water and next thing I knew the pit crew was yelling here he comes. He was back quick so I took off for lap 2 for me and about 3/4 of the way through, I came up on a guy on a Suzuki that seemed to crack the throttle a little more in the real muddy spots, not sure if that was because he heard someone coming up on him or if that was just how he rode but he was giving me a mudbath. I woohoo’d him and got past him while he was avoiding the water, I just blasted through the water, think I may have spashed him just a bit. After the mudbath he’d been giving me, I made sure I gave him the same courtesy as I passed - did I mention I had a brand new IRC M5B 120/80/18 on my bike? :busted:

Then I crashed in a mudhole and the Suzuki guy woohoo'd me as I was laying there. :rant: Luckily I went over on the left but the bike kept running and I was worried it had sucked silt into it. Well I wasn't going to push it back to the pits so I fired it up, first kick and it seemed fine so off I went. I was going to catch that guy now and woohoo him again! I caught him shortly afterwards and gave him my most feminine woohoo, followed by some good roost.

Tagged Speedy, and pulled my seat off to see what it looked like in the air box. Silty, damp, silty. Speedy's mom said my bike sounded funny when I went by on the long straights. Yeah I noticed. So Speedy pulled in after 12 flipping minutes (did I say he was fast, but he was fast in MUD too), and we waved him on because I thought we only had 30 minute left and I was afraid I was going to seize my bike then I realized that we had 1hour and 30 minutes left! I called Karl who was snowmobiling at home and happened to catch him on a break. He gave me some instructions, I told him I'd call him back, check the bike out as per instruction, seemed okay, Steve came in again - the guy is FAST! So off I went. I forgot to change my gloves out so had to work on holding on to the bike. Stalled in the frozen ruts, that's how I discovered that they were frozen. Biffed it hard over the bars in one slimey section where my front tire unexpectedly found a rock, stalled again later and had one almost over the bars episode where a mudhole was quite a bit deeper than I had expected.

I tagged Speedy for his last lap and wouldn’t you know it, he showed back up from his lap at 3:50 pm, meaning I got to do ONE MORE MUDDY LAP! I was TIRED now so I just tried to ride as fast as I could (because slow was more work than fast) and not screw up. I stalled at least twice and had a couple almost tip overs that I saved. Finally making it to the checkpoint where they collected our armband. I told Josh he had outdone himself this time and he just smiled! My bike was running great but it still sounded funny and there was silt in the airbox. I didn’t have a spare air filter or grease or a clean spot on my body so I didn’t dare pull the filter to look under it. Hopefully it didn’t suck silt, won’t know until we actually get the truck unloaded and clean some of the mud off the poor thing.

People were unrecognizable, everybody was MUD from head to toe. The field was really thinning out from attrition. There were muddy bikes stuck, muddy bikes parked off to the side, muddy riders walking into the pits from their bikes. When I took off my coat and it's 25 lbs of mud and realized that there was no way I was brushing my hair, it was caked with mud along my neckline and it looked like I had eyeliner on from the mud around my eyes.

My son after the race:

My son and I after the race (like the hair? I worked like 3 hours on that do)


My bike with his new piston, new bearings, new tires, well at least they were in the morning.

 

[bbbom]

Pitrow, about the best part of the whole track


They processed the results quickly - yaaaaaaaaa and to my surprise, Speedy and I won the Jack & Jill Class - woohoo, I definitely owe that to my partner! My son and his partner took 3rd in Lightweight and his other friends took 4th in Lightweight. There were 81 team entries, 39 finished, we were 20th overall and Pat's team was 13th. My sons friend (old dudes that race with him) and his partner were 10th, he was sure to point out to my son, because they beat him but my son did tell him to enjoy the moment. ;)

The boys and their trophies:


Speedy and I with our trophies:

 

[fatcat216]

Very cool. Congrats.

 

[SpeedyManiac]

A big thank you to bbbom! I really didn't want to run the Ironman class the way the course was.

Usually a fairly large contingent of riders from the Kootenays (Trail, Castlegar and Nelson, BC) comes down to the Spokane tag team harescrambles every year. I was supposed to be teamed up with my buddy but unfortunately, he tweaked his knee skiing a week before so he was out. I called around to the rest of my regular ride/race buddies but everyone was bailing with excuses (new bike, my suspension is away being tuned, my bike needs a new clutch, no bike, no ID to get into the USA, I don't feel like racing in the mud, blah, blah, blah). Anyways, I still wanted to go (I'm kinda nuts about riding my dirtbike) so I finished rebuilding my ISDE bike and broke it in Saturday.

Sunday morning came way too early thanks to a birthday party and the time change, but I dragged my tired ass out of bed and hit the road by 8:00am. They were calling for mud so I brought my 2007 GasGas EC250 and my 2001 EC200; I'd decide which one to ride once I got a look at the track. I arrived just before 11:00am in time to see the peewees and quads riding around on a very muddy course. One look at the course and I knew there was no way I would be racing an ironman class. I hummed and hawed and decided to look for a partner to race one of the tag team classes. This way I'd still get to ride (my main objective was just to get some time on the bike and shake off the cobwebs) but wouldn't have to push too hard (after all, I've been slacking off on training, though that's changing now). I left my name and info at the sign up booth in hopes of finding someone to race with. I had just walked back to the truck when a guy on a YZ450F pulled up and asked if I wanted to race with him in the heavyweight class. I said sure so we headed down to signup. When we got down to signup he met one of his buddies who was looking for a partner so I got ditched. The woman running signup mentioned there was a fast woman looking for a tag team partner so I went looking for her. I found her truck, but she wasn't there so I headed back down to signup in hopes of running into her there. She wasn't there, but pretty soon I saw my mom walking towards me talking to a blonde woman, who turned out to be bbbom!

We got signed up, then headed back to the pits to get ready. I opted to skip the parade lap due to the really muddy conditions (I figured it wouldn't help anyways as the course will change every lap) and bbbom agreed to start the race (I was happy for this - I hate starts and am always slow off the line). bbbom got off to a good start and before I knew it she was coming in for her first lap. We swapped the arm band and I took off onto a wet, but surprisingly good course. I hadn't ridden since November, but I surprised myself by feeling right at home on the bike. I must say the new Gassers are amazing bikes! I could just point it wherever I wanted and it would go. Plus the engine is magic - strong but very, very smooth. It also helps to have a dual stage ignition (smooth and snappy modes - I used smooth today). Anyways, I just tried to stay moving, avoid deep holes and ruts and keep the bike on two wheels. I wasn't standing or being aggressive, I just rode around and tried to make smart decisions. I finished my lap, handed off the tag then went to work getting fresh goggles and gloves for my next lap. bbbom again arrived in short order and I took off out into the mud. The holes and ruts were getting deeper, but things were still rather uneventful. I swapped arm tags with bbbom and went about getting ready for my next lap. On lap 6 (3rd for me) I found the holes where getting deeper but the course wasn't too bad. People were getting stuck in ruts, but I didn't understand it since there was still good traction. I continued cruising around the course and when I arrived to swap arm tags, bbbom didn't have her gear on! Turns out she may have sucked some silt into her engine so off I was to do another lap. I hoped I didn't have to ride the rest of the race by myself since there was still another 1.5 hours left. I had a small tip over in a rut, covering my grip in mud but otherwise had a good lap. Luckily when I came back in bbbom decided to try out her bike again and went for another lap. It was getting a little colder out and I hoped the race would be over fairly soon. bbbom had a crash just before coming to swap arm tags, but otherwise looked to be riding very well. I still can't believe she rides a CR500! I headed out on lap #9 feeling pretty good. All was well until I went to change lines and hit some ice. My front end slip out and I crashed into the not soft mud. Turns out the ground was frozen still so I left some elbow skin behind. I finished off my lap cold and a little sore and hoped I wouldn't have to do one more. bbbom finished off the race for us with another great lap! Like I said before, I'm impressed! bbbom is a very, very good rider!

We got cleaned up (well, sort of, it was tough without running water) then checked out our results. Much to my surprise bbbom and I ended up winning Jack & Jill! I was also amused to find out the guy who ditched me ended up finishing 24th overall while bbbom and I were 20th overall. Anyways, we picked up our trophies then headed back to the cold white north (which isn't much different from Spokane!). Today clean up has been ugly. Lots of mud everywhere!

Thanks again bbbom for a fun race! Are you and Pat planning on going to the Desert 100 in April?

 

[SpeedyManiac]

Here's some pictures:
bbbom:

me:

swapping tags:

after the race:

 

[bbbom]

Nice, you got some action shots. That first one must have been the parade lap for me, my bike looks pretty clean!!!

You are welcome, and thanks for hooking up with me, I wasn't too keen on ironmaidening that one either.

We probably won't be at the Desert 100, that's the same weekend as the Loretta Lynn Area Qualifier at Airway so we'll most likely be racing there. If we change our minds or if Pat's classes only run one of the days, we may head out to the Dez. I haven't been to a Desert 100 since abou 2000 when it was at Vantage.

 

[XRpredator]

For some reason I'm glad I retired . . . ;)

Glad you guys had fun. Now go wash your bikes!

 

[bbbom]

Aw Pred, you would have loved it! And you could have made it so I wasn't on the biggest bike out there. ;)

 

[XRpredator]

I'd have probably fared better on my Polaris

 

[bsmith]

Looks like good times! Ironically I was in a dust bowl about 120 miles away!