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How the game is played Df e ~7e -esse~ce By Kit Palmer g 36 et's face it , the ISDE is on e of the most complicated sporting events in the world. It 's a scoring nightmare. There a r e enough rul es, regula tions a n d point-tallying sessions to make a grown man cry. Luckily, it's not necessary to be totally familiar with all of the technical mumbo jumbo to enjoy and really ge t the gist of the Six Days, but understanding some of the "basics" will make your life at the John Zink Ranch just that much more enjoyable. First of all, it's important to realize who you're watching. There are a lot of riders at the Six Days, but only a select few are actually competing for the prestigious World Trophy. Each country selects six riders (usually their six fastest) to compete on their World Troph y team, and the team to win this competition is usually said to have "won the Six Days ." In th e long history of ISDE . competition, Team USA has never wo n this class. All World Trophy team riders must run red number-plate ba ckgrounds on the ir bikes. Most countries also enter a four- rid er " B" team, bet ter known as the Junior World Trophy ieam . Once known as the Sil ver Vas e competit ion, this cla ss is now res tr icte d to riders who are 23 years of age or youn ger. Team USA has won this clas s twice, the first time in Massachusetts in 1973, and again in Czechoslo vakia in 1991. Riders on these teams ca n be distinguished b y their green number-plate backgrounds. Final-ly, most countries also ha ve several Club teams of three riders each . Riders on these tearns are generally competing more for personal satisfaction than the honor of th eir cou ntry, and are easily identifiable by their yellow n u m berplate backgrounds. Riders wit hin these three types of teams can also sign up on manufactu rers' team s, but World Tr ophy, World Junio r Trophy a nd Club teams are th e three types to be mos t concerned with. These rid ers are also divided into various classes, based upon moto rcycle type and d isplacemen t. There have trad ition ally been six different classes in ISDE competition, but those categories have been streamlined to four divisions for 1994. The names of the classes are, the Lightweight class (for two-stroke motorcycles from 0-I25cc); the Heavyweight class (for two-stroke motorcycles from 126cc on up); the Lightweight Four-Stroke class (for four -stroke motorcycles from 0-3S0cc); and the Heavyweight Four-Stroke class (for four-stroke motorcycles from 3S1cc on up). There used to be an 80cc class but the FIM dropped that class from the program starting this year. You'll hear a lot of people refer to the ISDE as a race. Wrong. It is not a race, at least not in the normal sense of the word. It is, however, a race against the clock. In ISDE competition, time is everything. From the moment the rider leaves the star t area in the morning, to the m om ent h e delivers the bike to impound later that afternoon, his life revolves completely around his wa tch, and every tick of the clock is his worst enemy. Each rider is given a time schedule for completing each day's trail, which can run as high as 170 miles a day - usually over two loops (total miles over the six days can be no less than 750 miles, and no mo re than 1000 m ile s ). Sca ttered about the trail are known checkpoints (also called control checks), and there can be as many as 12 or so of these checks. Generally, the checks aren't designed to be difficult for the riders to arrive at on time; riding at a moderate pace, the top riders can realistically arrive at these checks up to IS minutes early. More typically, these riders have around five minutes to spare. But rain can change all this around in the blink of an eye . Luckily, the event organizers have different time schedules to chose from in the event of The ISDE Is basically a race against the clock. Here, Paul Krause Is about to break the beam at the start of a special test In Australia. rain or bad weather. In ideal conditions, the organizers will incorpora te an "A" schedule, where the riders will have to ma intain a fairly fast, bu t still makable speed average between the checks. In less than ideal condi tions, such as muddy or dusty situations, a slower "B" schedule (or speed average) might be used, giving the rid ers a little bit more time between checks. When things get really bad, like in Holland last year when much of the course became overly saturated with water, a much slower "C" schedule can be implemented. Unlike traditional U.S. endures, riders aren 't penalized for arriving at the checks early (unless they actually cross into the checkpoint boundaries that are id en tified by different colored flags) . If the rider does arrive early, he then must wait until his prescribed minute comes up, and only then proceed into the check. Arriving early gives the riders a chance to do any bike maintenance that might be needed and/or to rest up. If he wants, a rider can actually cross the flags and enter the check up to one minute early. This is due to a 6O-second "grace period," designed to allow riders to "bump up" to an earlier minute. Once a rider "bumps up" one minute, he assumes a new sched ule; he must then arrive at each of the following checks one minute ea rlier . By mo ving up one minute per check, riders can join their fr iends or teammates, or -s w itch to a minute with fewer riders. The "bumping-up" idea also works in reverse; riders may move ba ck to later minutes, as long as they do so no more than one minute at a time. However, if a rider arrives at a check more than 60 seconds after his prescri bed time, he'll be given a penalty of 60 points, and will receive 60 more poin ts for every other minute he is late. Points incurred in this way are called "route points," and are the worst kind, since they're usually avoid able. ISDE riding is not like basketball; in the ISDE, po ints are bad . At the ISDE , riders want lo w scores, not high ones. It's n ot uncommon fo r a rider to "zero" the da y, or trail, meaning that he arrived a t all of the checks at or before his prescrib ed time and was given no route points. But there are many other wa ys of getting penalized, besides being late to a check. One such penalty is called a "lat e start" penal ty. Each ride r is given a prescribed start time every morn ing, and if a he is una ble to start his bike and travel 60 feet u nder its power within that minute, he is penalized 20 points. But perhaps the wors t penalty of all is when a ride r drops out or "hours out" of the even t. This not only ruins his own personal score, bu t that of his team, as well. A person who hours out is slapped with a IS,O OD-point penalty that day and for each d ay thereaf ter. Technica lly, the most penal ty points one ride r can rack up is 90,000 points. One rider d ropping out all but wipes ou t his team's chances of winning the Six Days, especially if he is side lined early in the event. Gen erally, the trail isn't designed to "take away" points - instead, this is the job of the "special tests," also known as terrain or cross country tests, and MX or grass-track tests. There are usu ally two or three tests on a given da y, and each is normally run twice per day. Gras s tracks are usually laid out in open fields, are lined by plastic tape, and feature many turns. Riders are let loose in anywhere from 10- to 3D-second intervals. Terrain, or cross country, tests are usually laid ou t on a trail through dense trees and/or s h r u b be r y, and can include small water crossings, logs, rocks, etc. Sometimes, rid ers aren't timed on their first time through these sections, in the interest of safety. A variety of these tests are used throughout the Six Days, and the riders are not allowed to prac-