Metcalf Hare Scramble

It was nice to go to a local race and see all of the people that we grew up racing against.  Our IMS dry brake filling tanks were in our van in Ohio so we needed to try to mooch the use of someone's for the race.  We asked around and some of the other racers said it might be possible to work something out, and since G-Man was on pit duties for the weekend we were confident he would get it covered.  We lined up in the middle of the motocross track and the first the first turn was made sweeping around outside the normal track.  When the buzzer went off Brian got around the first corner in the lead.  I was still on the starting line, when I hit the magic electronic start button on my KTM 400 4-stroke nothing happened.  I kept hitting the button but it wouldn't start.  I tried the kickstarter a few times and it still wouldn't start, then after about 45 seconds it finally started with the button.   Brian was leading coming off of the moto track, but got a little confused leaving the track and Rob Zimmerman took advantage of the opportunity and took the lead.  Brian followed Rob onto the Grand Prix track behind the motocross track.  After rounding a fast downhill sweeper Brian passed Zimmerman then hit a big rolling jump looking back at Rob while jumping about fifty feet.  Brian opened up a good lead early taking advantage of not having any dust.  The track was pretty good even though it was dusty.  There was a new single track trail made just for the race, many fast rocky fireroads, some manzanita trails, along with most of the little tracks set up around the park.  
After the first lap Brian had about a minute lead.  I was sucking major dust and managed to get up to about 12th after the first lap.  Brian and I saw each other on the first lap, he was leaving the ATV track and I was just coming out of a tight trail.  He already had a three or four minute lead on me.  Over the next couple of laps Brian increased his lead.  I was working my was through the pack the best I could, catching Craig Wesner on the third lap for fifth place.  When we came in to pit after the fourth lap Brian used Rod Kreiss's tank first.  Zimmerman came and pitted second, followed by Kreiss who already had his tank ready for fueling again, and I used Zimmerman's quick fill tank.  When we filled up the bike the receiver on my tank wouldn't pop up.  G-Man pushed the tank down a couple times to try to get it to pop up but it wouldn't go.  In the process of trying to get the receiver to pop up Wesner got around me again.  Brian experienced some major problems on this lap when his rear wheel came apart on him and forced him out of contention.  I kept charging for the rest of the race and the 4-stroke worked incredibly well on the dry hardpacked track.  I made it as up to third place at the finish following first place Rob Zimmerman and Rod Kreiss who again we need to thank for letting us use their dry brake tanks.

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