mxbundy
Sponsoring Member
A great race run in under epic conditions!
For me things were a little hectic getting ready to go. As usual I left a lot of things till the last minute to do.
Got home from work on Thursday and started in on the last steps on getting the bike ready. Well before I knew it, it was 10 at night before I was finished loading the truck. Was planning on leaving at around 2 am for the 18 hour drive to Washougal. After a little thought I just decided to go for it and leave right then. Said my good buys to the wife and kids and was on the road at 11 pm.
The drive was uneventful and I arrived at the track at around 4 pm. Then things started to get a little screwy. Bonehead called and said that he was running late. Which with Bonehead means that he is gonna be real late, seams he tends to underestimate. :confused:
After a while I fall asleep in my truck, and thats when Boney happens to arrive , so I guess he is driving all over the pits and I am asleep in the truck. Finally I awake and steo out side to have a look around and there he is. Seems he had been there for an hour looking for me.
With that comedy of errors behind us we started setting up camp. We finnaly got dinner started, Bonehead had brought a couple of New York steaks along and it was a good thing, Iwas ready to start begging for food. Let me tell you, those steaks dissapeared quick.
Next morning we awoke to discover it had rained through the night. Imagine that, rain in Wash. state! But the track looked good and I was looking forward to riding in some mud. Hasent rained down my way in months.
Bonehead started 2 rows ahead of me in the Vet expert class and I was in the 4th row in the Vet am. class. Both of us had full rows, 30 to 40 plus riders in each class.
They where gonna have a live engine start, but both feet had to be on the ground on the right side of your bike. Now this presented a big problem for our fearless friend Bonehead, being all of 5 feet nothin it took him three trys to get his leg over the bike after the flag went up. Imagine a short kinda rotund guy running along beside his bike and trying to hop on at the same time. It brought tears to my eyes from the laughing! :p
My start was better, I was 4th going into the first turn and third going into the woods. Man was it slick. One wrong move and you would be in the :uh: . You had ti stay as up right as possible on the bike, if you l tried to lean over at all, one or both tires would just go away. The ground was rocky with a layer of slime just on top. Perfect! :p
The 2 guys ahead of me, one with a McGrath look alike Yam, the other on a 400MXC where all over the place. my plan was tp just be patient and let these guys make the mistakes. It wasnt long.
After the start we had about a mile of woods and then the grass track. These guys were all over the place, both almost going down several times, too much throttle and not enough traction.
Just as we were going on to the grass track, mister MXC grabs way too big a hand full of throttle and swaps violently. Great one down one to go. we stay the same all through the 1.5 mile grass track. Me taking the inside if he went wide and then trying the out side if he went tight. Made for some good wheel to wheel racing.
But just as we went back into the woods, he over shoots a turn and goes down. Alright, a third of the way through the first lap and I am in the lead and pullin away!
A couple miles further I come out of the woods and there is Bonehead on side of the trail having a little prayer secession leaned over his bars. I found out later that he had over come his bad start and worked his way up to 5th when he bailed hard.
I yelled when I went buy and this gave him the motivation to rejoin the fray. Right after I passed Bonehead, there was this cool up hill jump that you could just hit pinned in 4th and land way up the hill, awesome. But at the top of the hill last years course went left and this years went right. Guess which way I went. :(
After busting threw the ribbon and getting it tangled up in my rear wheel, I finally manage to get turned around and back on course. Only now back in third place. I just out my head down and try ti ride as smooth as possible. in no time I am back on the tail of mister MXC. And he prombtly goes down and hands me second place. But mister YZ is gone, I will no longer see him and ultimatly he will beat me buy about 4 minutes. Guess he was able to smooth things out with nobody to pressure him and ride a good race. I just decide to do the same and try and make it to the finish in one piece, buy this time it had started to mist rain and things were truely getting slick.
Bonehead in the meantime was trying to catch up and ride with me when I came up on a bottle neck. A quick look around and there must be about 25 riders here. In my mind I am thinking that maybe mister YZ is among them, so I start elbowing my way to the front and just launch up the abroupt rock face that has everybody stalled and make it after a little bit of bulldoging.
Bonehead arrived on the scene and saw what I did and he just followed me up and cleaned it.
So here we go freight training threw the woods. We come to this one extremely steep bown hill with a left turn about half way down. There was a couple of course marshalls yelling at us to slow down, that there was a rider down at the bottom.
Well right there, right in front of me Bonehead trys to slow down, but the front wheel just locks up and he goes off the side of his bike and lands on his belly. Now imagine this he is sliding down on his belly right behind his bike in this slick yellowish clay mud. I still get a giggle when i think about it.
Well he gets going and we ride together some more untill I stall out in corner and take a couple of minutes to get going.
Just when you jump down back onto the MX track I hear a bike just pinned, it goes buy in a flash, its mister MXC back for some more. Well he is going way to fast to make the turn at the bottom and just yard sales it on the big bank that makes the bowl turn. I barely make it through as his bike tumbles back down on the track and barely misses me.
Had a couple more pretty uneventful laps except for the time that Bonehead just showered me with roost. He was trying to get around a guy and was going from one side of the track to the other going up this hill and it was like a fire hose of roost just pelting me.
Buy this time the sun had come out and the track had dried out some, so you could actually start to charge a little bit. But i got a little bit to agressive and almost went down in a corner and stalled the motor again. Well this time she just would not light off again and a couple of yellow plates went buy. She finally starts up and now I am pissed, my 2nd place is in jeopardy, so I put my head down and catch up to them a little before the the mx track but can not find a way around them.
We battle it out untill we come back on to the grass track. now I had just bought a steering damper from GPR the night before, so I decide to see if it is all it is cracked up to be. I just go ballistic pinned down the staights, flat tracking all the corners ( ol89r would have been proud ) and I just blow them both off in the weeds.
But not knowing how much time is left I try and ride defensively and make it to the end, I had used up alot of energy with the stalling of the bike and passing the two guys back.
Next time around I get the white flag and cruise the last lap for a second place in Vet Amature.
As for Bonehead, he made up a lot of ground on his class, but lets just say we both finished with 2`s in our final score. Now I am not saying if there was a zero in there some where. I think I will just let him tell his story!
Bundy
ps. This is not even close to the end, there is a whole days worth of missadventures at the Tillamook trail ride the next day. Hopefully Endoquest will put quill to pad and write that one up!
For me things were a little hectic getting ready to go. As usual I left a lot of things till the last minute to do.
Got home from work on Thursday and started in on the last steps on getting the bike ready. Well before I knew it, it was 10 at night before I was finished loading the truck. Was planning on leaving at around 2 am for the 18 hour drive to Washougal. After a little thought I just decided to go for it and leave right then. Said my good buys to the wife and kids and was on the road at 11 pm.
The drive was uneventful and I arrived at the track at around 4 pm. Then things started to get a little screwy. Bonehead called and said that he was running late. Which with Bonehead means that he is gonna be real late, seams he tends to underestimate. :confused:
After a while I fall asleep in my truck, and thats when Boney happens to arrive , so I guess he is driving all over the pits and I am asleep in the truck. Finally I awake and steo out side to have a look around and there he is. Seems he had been there for an hour looking for me.
With that comedy of errors behind us we started setting up camp. We finnaly got dinner started, Bonehead had brought a couple of New York steaks along and it was a good thing, Iwas ready to start begging for food. Let me tell you, those steaks dissapeared quick.
Next morning we awoke to discover it had rained through the night. Imagine that, rain in Wash. state! But the track looked good and I was looking forward to riding in some mud. Hasent rained down my way in months.
Bonehead started 2 rows ahead of me in the Vet expert class and I was in the 4th row in the Vet am. class. Both of us had full rows, 30 to 40 plus riders in each class.
They where gonna have a live engine start, but both feet had to be on the ground on the right side of your bike. Now this presented a big problem for our fearless friend Bonehead, being all of 5 feet nothin it took him three trys to get his leg over the bike after the flag went up. Imagine a short kinda rotund guy running along beside his bike and trying to hop on at the same time. It brought tears to my eyes from the laughing! :p
My start was better, I was 4th going into the first turn and third going into the woods. Man was it slick. One wrong move and you would be in the :uh: . You had ti stay as up right as possible on the bike, if you l tried to lean over at all, one or both tires would just go away. The ground was rocky with a layer of slime just on top. Perfect! :p
The 2 guys ahead of me, one with a McGrath look alike Yam, the other on a 400MXC where all over the place. my plan was tp just be patient and let these guys make the mistakes. It wasnt long.
After the start we had about a mile of woods and then the grass track. These guys were all over the place, both almost going down several times, too much throttle and not enough traction.
Just as we were going on to the grass track, mister MXC grabs way too big a hand full of throttle and swaps violently. Great one down one to go. we stay the same all through the 1.5 mile grass track. Me taking the inside if he went wide and then trying the out side if he went tight. Made for some good wheel to wheel racing.
But just as we went back into the woods, he over shoots a turn and goes down. Alright, a third of the way through the first lap and I am in the lead and pullin away!
A couple miles further I come out of the woods and there is Bonehead on side of the trail having a little prayer secession leaned over his bars. I found out later that he had over come his bad start and worked his way up to 5th when he bailed hard.
I yelled when I went buy and this gave him the motivation to rejoin the fray. Right after I passed Bonehead, there was this cool up hill jump that you could just hit pinned in 4th and land way up the hill, awesome. But at the top of the hill last years course went left and this years went right. Guess which way I went. :(
After busting threw the ribbon and getting it tangled up in my rear wheel, I finally manage to get turned around and back on course. Only now back in third place. I just out my head down and try ti ride as smooth as possible. in no time I am back on the tail of mister MXC. And he prombtly goes down and hands me second place. But mister YZ is gone, I will no longer see him and ultimatly he will beat me buy about 4 minutes. Guess he was able to smooth things out with nobody to pressure him and ride a good race. I just decide to do the same and try and make it to the finish in one piece, buy this time it had started to mist rain and things were truely getting slick.
Bonehead in the meantime was trying to catch up and ride with me when I came up on a bottle neck. A quick look around and there must be about 25 riders here. In my mind I am thinking that maybe mister YZ is among them, so I start elbowing my way to the front and just launch up the abroupt rock face that has everybody stalled and make it after a little bit of bulldoging.
Bonehead arrived on the scene and saw what I did and he just followed me up and cleaned it.
So here we go freight training threw the woods. We come to this one extremely steep bown hill with a left turn about half way down. There was a couple of course marshalls yelling at us to slow down, that there was a rider down at the bottom.
Well right there, right in front of me Bonehead trys to slow down, but the front wheel just locks up and he goes off the side of his bike and lands on his belly. Now imagine this he is sliding down on his belly right behind his bike in this slick yellowish clay mud. I still get a giggle when i think about it.
Well he gets going and we ride together some more untill I stall out in corner and take a couple of minutes to get going.
Just when you jump down back onto the MX track I hear a bike just pinned, it goes buy in a flash, its mister MXC back for some more. Well he is going way to fast to make the turn at the bottom and just yard sales it on the big bank that makes the bowl turn. I barely make it through as his bike tumbles back down on the track and barely misses me.
Had a couple more pretty uneventful laps except for the time that Bonehead just showered me with roost. He was trying to get around a guy and was going from one side of the track to the other going up this hill and it was like a fire hose of roost just pelting me.
Buy this time the sun had come out and the track had dried out some, so you could actually start to charge a little bit. But i got a little bit to agressive and almost went down in a corner and stalled the motor again. Well this time she just would not light off again and a couple of yellow plates went buy. She finally starts up and now I am pissed, my 2nd place is in jeopardy, so I put my head down and catch up to them a little before the the mx track but can not find a way around them.
We battle it out untill we come back on to the grass track. now I had just bought a steering damper from GPR the night before, so I decide to see if it is all it is cracked up to be. I just go ballistic pinned down the staights, flat tracking all the corners ( ol89r would have been proud ) and I just blow them both off in the weeds.
But not knowing how much time is left I try and ride defensively and make it to the end, I had used up alot of energy with the stalling of the bike and passing the two guys back.
Next time around I get the white flag and cruise the last lap for a second place in Vet Amature.
As for Bonehead, he made up a lot of ground on his class, but lets just say we both finished with 2`s in our final score. Now I am not saying if there was a zero in there some where. I think I will just let him tell his story!
Bundy
ps. This is not even close to the end, there is a whole days worth of missadventures at the Tillamook trail ride the next day. Hopefully Endoquest will put quill to pad and write that one up!
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