Aztalan Harescramble

Ah the great month of July in Wisconsin. Usually that means beer, boats and hot temps! Not this year however, we have been blessed (or cursed if you are into hanging out on the water) with record low temps, rain during the week and perfect weekends…w. e. i. r.d.! So with a lull in the endure racing world two members of Team P& G Offroad went racing in the form of a Harescramble. Now most of you know I normally am not too keen on this type of racing as I get bored with the short tracks and the same trail for two hours, but with my old age I feel it nessicary to NOT get stuck in my ways. With that said a quick look back at the 2009 version of the Aztalan D16 Harescramble.

The day starts with meeting Smooth (AKA Curt Shomburg) at a great little restaurant in Middleton for breakfast. Curty shows up and we head in for some good old greasy breakfast…the stuff champions are made of. Sitting down the waitress is immediately eyeing me up, now anyone who knows me would immediately understand it is not on account of my good looks, nope, she was eyeing up my Moose Racing pit shirt. So she asks “Do you race?” my initial response was going to be…”Nope, bought the shirt in the mall at Hot Topic!” but I thought better of it and Curt and I had a nice conversation about how we race in the woods and NOT that “jumping” stuff from the X games. Somehow she was less in awe of us after finding out that we are not as cool as the X games boys. Oh well….story of my life. Good from far and far from good I suppose!
After the quick jaunt down to Lake Mills, Smoothie and find a perfect parking spot, well perfect until we realize that Joe BOB Vandebobucher, John “The Hulk” Buechner and Serious Joe Bauer are parked there already. Oh well, I am too lazy to move my truck now, no just kidding, nice to park by these guys and share some laughs. Word travels fast that the course is running the moto track backwards (awesome!), we get to ride almost the entire flat track and the promoters have worked hard to set up a bunch of new sections to challenge the riders. I must admit, that I like real technical trail and not fast flowing trail but the parties involved in putting this event on did a bang up job creating a trail that was both fun and challenging for all the riders of skill sets. My helmet is off to them for that effort!
A 1:30 start time finds us on the line of the start, just in front of the normal moto start. My memory jogs to a time years gone by when we were in our “ moto head” stage and running the motocross races there. Man those where fun times, rough on the body but fun. I have to admit that I am having more fun in my advanced years racing then I did then. The gun goes off and the AA line is off. There were a good number of us, I think around 10 or so. Good for a local harescramble. I shot to about a 4th place start, not too bad I guess, shoot I have two hours to figure out my place in this race. We buzz around the first lap, and just as I am coming around to the step up jump my bike feels like it is dragging down, I proceed to unintentionally scrub the jump (well actually more of a scrubbing my brakes as I roll the jump) I realize that I tightened my brake up too much and it is locking the rear wheel up tight. So I pass thru the barrels and pull over to the side of the trail, I figured it was a good place to stop as our D16 H.S. directors rig (Brian “Swap” Terry) was right there and I would be able to steal parts off of his bike if I needed. Lucky for me being an old school enduro rider, I had my fanny pack on and was able to quickly back the adjuster out which freed the wheel up. All the while I am doing this, all of the AA riders have pasted, the A riders have long since gone by and I can hear the B riders bearing down on my location. My only thought, and I mean no offense to them, was to get up and going before they come a buzzing down the trail. If I was behind them, it would make getting back up the lead group quite hard. As they were coming thru the whoops I leaped onto my bike and tore off, sights set on the lead pack.
As the race wore on I was able to pass the entire group of A riders, well there was only two of them. Good old Joe Barr and Bob Kau’s nephew. They put up a good fight but I was able to slip by them as well the subsequent AA riders. I battled hard and could just catch sight of my good buddy Johnny “The strangler” Strangfeld up ahead. I put my head down and caught up to him. We circled the track for 3 laps together until we caught up to some dude on an YZ two stroke who was going good. The bad was that he was not going as “good” as we were. So he was holding us up just a bit, but we were not able to park him either. On the outside of the flat track and to the inside of highway there was a fast section and some large loader tires to negotiate. I kind had it in my head that I was going to keep it pinned and flat track around the outside of both the YZ guy and Johnny. So I barrel down on them two fellers, and drift to the outside out of the main groove. Slowly I roll the mighty 300’s throttle on and prepare to hit warp speed. Just as the gas and air meet and explode I remember that the grass can and more than likely will be SLIPPERY! Shizza…before I know it the bike is in a gnarly full lock, super moto slide, the praying begins and I hope for the best. I think to myself “This aint gonna pan out so well!”. Lucky for me the rear tire gets traction and proceeds to violently buck to the opposite direction and into a full lock situation there. From that point on I was just holding on for dear life in a full on handstand. The bike whips back and forth to each full lock position until it not so gently lays on the ground and I land about 10 feet from it. As this is happening I see my Moose Racing hand deflector go flying off like a little Frisbee, I must have hit it with hand or my head. The dust settles, I take a quick body part check. Thru the dust I can hear and start to see my mighty 300 layin’ on its side in disgust with the rider/captains poor lack of judgment in this maneuver. Low and behold the old girl is still running, man you just can’t stop the 300! I pick her up and speed off, handlebars pointed about 30 deg to the opposite side of the tire. The first tree I find I pull over and give it a handle bar slap all old school style and straighten the mess out. After a lap or so the tweet tweet birds go away and I decide that maybe I should just ride her out and see how it pans out….kinda lost my racy feeling ya know!~
At the two hour mark we find JD Friebel and Matt Harrington running down 17 laps, the only two to do so. Brian Messerschmitt, John Strangfeld and I round out the top five putting in 16 laps. All in a good race and a good time. Smooth brings home a very impressive 3rd place finish in B class in what was the biggest class of the day. Nice work Smooth in your first H.S. ever, how the hell is that his first H.S.? I don’t know but he can do that well too…geez I hate that guy, he does everything good, and all the while with a smile on his face! Joe BoB V got second and John “The Hulk” Buechner finishes first. I must apologize as I do not know where “serious” Joe Bauer finished, either way, he was, well serious after the race! ?

All the fun expended, we decide to pull the pin and head home. I fire my gear and bike in the back of the truck and head off. This is the best part of the day. On the way down to the race I was thinking about my gas can and how many miles it must have on it going to the races. What else do you do when you are driving by yourself? It is nothing special, just a JAZZ brand jug left over from stock car days with a handmade plug and pouring tube. Not worth much really, but it does contain about 40 bucks of 110 octane Sunoco race fuel and a lot of memories. Well apparently when I pulled out of the azzie parking lot, it proceeded to fall out of the back of my truck and into the middle of the road. This happened I went maybe ½ mile up the road before noticing it. So I whip around and head back to the parking area, just as I crest a knoll, I meet a shit box old truck with a shit box old bike in the back coming up the road from the parking lot, as I pass them at about 75 mph I notice that my faithful little homemade pour hose and plug are sticking out of the back of this truck. So I whip it around and pour the diesel to the big Cummins and race back towards these guys. I catch up to them just as they are pulling out onto the main road. I blast thru the stop sign and almost broad side them and block their path. I roll down my window and the guy yells “What the hell are you doing” I say “Give me back my gas can!” The funny thing was they must have seen me turn around and the passenger reached back and tipped the can over so I could not see it in the back of their truck! Now I am really fired up, what kind of person does this? They say” follow us and we will give it back!” I follow them for about a mile until the decide that they are really thirsty after their 31st place finish in C class and pull into a bar. I pull in right behind them and block their getaway, or so I thought. I fire the truck into park and pile out of the truck and head straight to their truck, grab my can out of the back and holler “What the F where you thinking?” To which they respond, “what would you do if you found a can on the side of road?” To which I volley “Leave the F’ing thing there!” Christ it has my name all over it and it was right by the race site. I sling it in the back of my truck and head out giving them a “Dumbass’s” out the window. Of course I waited until I was far enough away as to avoid any violence! I speed of with “old Faithfull” back in its rightful owner’s hands!
So that was my day! A good cartwheel fall off, a decent finish, a hot pursuit all Starsky and Hutch style (Less the Starskey and Hutch). Next stop on the stomping train, the Marquette National enduro. Though I suppose I will miss the train and be the one being stomped!
Till next time, heres dirt in your eye!

Speedy Pete