October 18, 2009 – Great Pumpkin Hare Scrambles
We’re coming down to the wire in the Northwest Motorcycle Association
(NMA) Offroad Series. Sunday was the 11th round of what will
ultimately be a 13 round series, which was held at Riverdale Raceway,
which is also the sight of the Toutle round of the WORCS series. Nice
track, good dirt, looked like a fun setup. The only potential problem
was 1 – 2 inches of rain that fell on Western Washington on Saturday
before the race, on top of a rainy week leading up to the weekend. Of
course, being an off road race, they race regardless of weather, so we
went prepared for a mudbath. When we arrived at the track Sunday
morning, we were pleasantly surprised to find a wet track, but not
saturated. Sure, there were a few puddles, the occasional mudhole, and
plenty of slippery spots, but all in all, it was a totally raceable
track.
After the morning’s shot course (1 ½ hour) race and the ½ hour kid’=
s
race, they lined up the long course (2 ½ hour) “Expert” race. Due to =
a
rather light turn out, they started the entire long course in 3 waves
instead of the usual 6 or 7. This shortened up the starting procedure,
all right, but it made for pretty full lines and crowded first turns.
The start featured a short straight with a 180 degree left hand turn
followed by a 4 jump rhythm section that most riders were double-
single-singling through, but the faster riders did double-double,
though the last jump was about 3 feet farther away from the 3rd jump
than most would have preferred; there were quite a few crashes from
coming up just a little bit short. On the start Scott was pinched off
in turn one a bit (they used a live engine MX style start, not Scott’s
strongest starting style), then had the rider in front of him double-
single-single when Scott was anticipating a double-double, so he lost
more ground when he pulled up to avoid a nasty crash. This left him
very near the wrong end of the field leaving the rhythm section.
Fortunately, the series class leader Nick the Nemesis had a similarly
bad start, and was actually still behind Scott. The course started on
the Moto course, went about 1/3 of a lap then dove into the woods,
popped back out onto the MX track a couple of miles later, then back
on the track, a short trip back to the woods, then finished on the
track and back to where they started. When they first returned to the
track, Scott and Nick had pretty much carved their way through the
entire B class and were running in front nose-to-tail. For the next 4
laps Scott and Nick went back and forth, never very far apart. At the
end of lap 4 I wandered out to the edge of the track to signal Scott
to pit the next lap, but as he entered the far end of the rhythm
section he saw me waiting and signaled himself emphatically that he
was coming in THIS lap. I sprinted back to our pit and got there about
the same time Scott did, as Nick rolled past on the track and kept
cruising. Scott got a quick fill up and hit the track in full sprint
mode, Nick having a couple minute lead at that point. As they came and
left our field of view on that lap, Scott was closing on Nick all the
way around the track, and when Nick pulled in to the pits at the end
of that lap Scott was only about 40 feet behind him, something that I
believe Nick and his crew neglected to notice (more on that later).
Scott put the hammer down to pull a gap while he could, and
inexplicably, Nick took a casual pit stop, then pulled out and kind of
cruised for the rest of the race. Scott came back around with a few
minute lead, which he continued to stretch each lap until finally we
were counting down the last few minutes before they closed the course,
waiting for Scott and Nick to reappear. Scott finally came in and
rolled through the final check about 5 seconds before they closed the
course, becoming the last rider to go out for a final lap. Realizing
that the race was his, Scott cruised the last lap to make damn sure he
didn’t break anything or crash himself out and DNF at this stage. As
he came past the pits on that last lap, there was a large cheering
section trackside. I gave him the “good” single digit signal meaning
both “one more lap” and “You’re in first”. As he doubled the seco=
nd
set of jumps of the rhythm section, Scott returned the signal with his
first single digit one hander. Megan, his girlfriend, caught that
moment in a really cool picture. Scott cruised the rest of the lap,
actually passing one more rider from a different class before the end.
After results were posted, Scott and Lorena and their respective
significant others were treated to the spectacle of Nick the Nemesis
coming up and reading the results, then throwing a fit when he saw
that he’d been beaten. He stormed in to the signup/scoring building to
protest, and came out a couple of minutes later all miffed because
they told him what we already knew: Scott finished with 9 laps, and
Nick (and the rest of the class) finished with 8.
It turned out to be a great day of racing, with people pitting with us
winning the AA class and event overall (Brandon Johnson), the 200B
class (Ty Mount), Open B (Scott), and second in the Senior A class
(Tim Mount). A good time was had by all, especially Scott, who was
thrilled to finally have shaken that monkey off his back. The last 2
races should be really interesting now that Scott has his mojo, and he
is firmly planted in Nick’s head. Second place for the season looks
like it’s going to happen. Next weekend is the 79th annual Cowbell
ISDE at Walker Valley (it was run as a timekeeping Enduro for the
first 70 years or so, but was switched to the 6 Days format a while
back when they lost access to the larger areas they used to run the
Enduro’s in, and had to move it to the much smaller Walker Valley
area). After that we get a 2 week break then the last race, the
Hareport Hare Scrambles runs at the Bremerton Airport on a purpose
built course in the woods on the airport property.
I’ll let you know how things turn out.
Tim H
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> Sorry Nick.
> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
> HaHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
> Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha