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Fernly
Hare Scramble We have a couple weeks off from National Races so we decided to make the trip out to Fernly and do some desert racing. Since our bikes were at Works Enduro Rider in Jersey I talked my friend Ty Spooner into letting me ride his KTM 300 and Brian rode the 125. We get to the starting line and the event promoter starts the rider meeting by saying “I can’t believe you guys came out here to race, you must be crazy!” Right at that moment everyone looks around and thinks to themselves why am I here? This place isn’t any fun and it certainly is dangerous. Next he goes on saying “I never have marked a course before and I don’t think we did too good of a job. Look for arrows. Go out on the power line road, go right to another road, go through some rocks and try to get back here. I think the course is around 22 miles long.” So now that they had us psyched out it was time to race. No one had a chance against the 300. A few people got a jump but when I power shifted from fourth to fifth the holeshot was mine. I led for a couple miles and got out to some virgin rocky section when Brian pulled up next to me. Neither of us wanted to go that fast through the rocks so cruised along until Robbie Zimmerman flew by throwing rocks all over the place. He led for a while but decided to turn left at a checkpoint even though there were five arrows pointed to the right. Brian and I both slowed down and thought to ourselves Robs going left but the arrows point right so I’m going right. Rob later admitted to a severe case of brain fade. At the end of the first lap I came in first with Brian close behind in second. I went in to pit thinking it was a three lap race but my pit crew wasn’t there. I gassed myself and took off now back in fifth. Brian was dust free out front so he kept the throttle pinned on the 125 while I had to work around Cole Marshall. We got side by side on a chopped out rocky fireroad and one of us would get some nerve and pin it for a bit and then the other one would and we went back and fourth to the end of the road where I pinned it and got into the single track first. Next I got around Craig Wesner and then passed Brian when he pitted after the second lap where he found out we were actually running twelve mile laps. I pulled a lead and was having fun on the 300 but then got a front flat. While I was cruising Brian and Craig caught me and it looked like they were having a good battle for the lead. Not too far behind them was Zimmerman who had got back and course and was on the move. Zimmerman moved around Brian and Craig on the last lap and then Craig pinned it through some rocks and hot lined Brian for second place. While I was cruising back to the pits with a front flat I washed out and had a stupid little crash. I was on the ground laughing and looked over at the bike and saw all of the oil coming out of a big hole in the case. OOOPPs Sorry TY |