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Indian Hare Scramble The last Hare Scramble of the year was located in Lynnville, Indiana among the remains of an old Coal Mining Operation. Brian and I attended along with Shane Watts an open house at the Superbike Shop in nearby Evansville and during the day we had a good five inches of rain. The locals around there said the race wouldn't be too bad because there hadn't been much rain lately and there was a good rock base around most of the track. Upon arriving on Sunday Morning the first thing that we noticed was that the rain had scared off quite a few people resulting in a small attendance. The start had a short strait, then over a couple of humps. We could see the guy that was counting down lips move and after 'one' we all started our bikes, then the buzzer went off when we were halfway down the first strait. Shane Watts led going into the first turn, with Brian close behind in second. I quickly got into third as we set out on the first lap. The course had lots of puddles from the rain, with the bottoms of the bumps from previous years filled with water. From the years of coal mining the land is shaped with channels where then dredging occurred and ridges from where it was dumped. The rain during the week made it pretty sloppy in the channels, but good up on top. Shane led a pretty mellow pace on the first lap scouting out the course. On the second lap we knew what we had to deal with and it was time to get going. Brian stuck right to Shane and kept following him but I made some mistakes in the mud and dropped back behind. On the third lap Shane made a mistake and fell and Brian took the lead. Brian tried to pick up the pace and pull some time in hopes of getting the win. I was having a little a rough time. I got stuck on a hill, trying to get around a couple of lappers that were stuck. I couldn't pick up mike bike because it was caught with the lappers so we both had to lift our bikes up together. In trying to get going again I dropped back to fourth. I got going again and rode hard but I had the same problem on the same hill the next lap and once again got mixed up with a couple of fallen riders. Brian led the race until he got to a wooden bridge where he crashed on the slippery surface. Shane came up to Brian and said asked about how slick the bridge was but left Brian to get going by himself. I started to ride better the next couple of laps, feeling more comfortable when it dried out a bit. Shane pulled a little gap to take a comfortable win, with Brian second, the local Indiana champ third, and I was fourth. |
