Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Riding at night turned out to be by far my favorite time of the race. However, I was getting a little anxious as my night stint was rapidly approaching, since our KTM's headlight wasn't as powerful as we had intended it to be, and my $10 flashlight that I had duct-taped to the top of my visor wasn't going to cut it. But when Chris said that he would lend me a sa no NiteRider helmet light that he had just purchased, I suddenly felt much better and couldn't wait to take over for Steve. I got on the bike at about 12:30 a.m. and after surviving the downhill and through the silt, whoops and rocks in the first portion of the lap, I suddenly realized just how much fun I was actually having. Yeah, the course was brutally rough and the dust was blinding in places, but, "Damn, this is great," I thought. Racing dirt bikes at 1:30 in the morning just isn't something you can do every day. I wasn't ready to give up the bike after my allotted two laps and was thinking of ways to sneak in a third lap. I even thought about blazing right past our pits and telling our crew the next time around that I had simply lost track of which lap I was on, but I decided against it. After all, we're talking just two laps here. Then I started hoping - no, praying - that maybe Scott (who was set to ride after me) wasn't ready to get on the bike yet, or that he had overslept or something - anything - so I could do one more lap. But noOOoo. Scott was raring to go, helmet on and everything, ready to ride. (I should've known.) Damn! goggles and you were truly blind. Making it to the bottom without falHng was a true accomplishment. I never want to see that Downhill again - at least until next year. K.P. Managing editor Chris .lonnum completes his final • circuit with I couldn't stop laughing at the way Paul described the back side of the mountain at night. He came back with tales of front-end tucks, near high-sides, and other dilemmas. He said he'd crashed 1000 times without hitting the ground. He said he was going to have nightmares about it all the way up until the time he fell asleep for his two-hour nap. Funny how I never heard any screams. I found out that he wasn't exaggerating too much when I took my first lap at night. I was thankful when I got to the bottom of that hill after each lap. a mouthful of slit and a sore shoulder. Uk. Paul, h. crashed on his final lap. S.B. Fortunately, I'd brought my mountain-bike helmet light to the event. Unfortunately, I couldn't mount it on the visor as I'd hoped and instead it took up residence on my face guard. It worked well and saved my ass on several occasions. The only problem was the fact that I had to turn my head to the right side in order to have the light point at the middle of the racetrack. If you happen to converse with me in the next few weeks, I'm not being rude by not looking you in the eye - bear with me, and stand to my right for a while, would ya? P.C. Thank God for Lance's wife, Jody. I'd forgotten my helmet light and I could tell by looking at the lights the KTM was equipped with that I'd need it." Jody was bringing Paul's son and her two boys out to the race and she saved my butt by bringing my lights out with her. That light was my saving grace at least 500 times. S.B. I never told anybody in our pit, but I was really wrestling with the decision as to whether or not to go out on my early a.m. shift. I simply didn't want to take any chances of hurting myself or the motorcycle by running through terrain that I could not see but that I knew was changing - for the worse with each passing hour. Then suddenly, a light went on - not in my head, but rather on the helmet of Bryce Oxley, the son of former National Speedway Champion Brad Oxley, who was contesting the race for a team pitted next to us. Mounted to Bryce's helmet was one of the brightest little beams that I'd ever seen. It was a NiteRider unit and, hey, didn't I see a trailer with that name on it pitted down the way? I scrambled down the pit lane until I came upon the rig, where I met NiteRider's Mike Linarelli, who told me that he had some units for sale. Mike offered me such a bro' deal on the company's $390 Headhunter lighting rig that I nearly tore my wallet in half as I went for my credit card. He even mounted it up for me, placing the lamphead on the mouthguard of my lid. Did it work? Yes and no. When there was no silt, the Headhunter was a lifesaver, but the problem was that many areas of the course had been ground into fine silt, and pointing the laser-like beam forward created such a reflection that I couldn't see two feet in front of my face. The strategy then was to toss my goggles and altemately rely on the Headhunter or the KTM's weak lighting, depending on the degree of dust that I ran through. Unfortunately, it was during a blind moment when I dropped the bike on the craggy uphill section on the back side of the course. No big deal, really, except that when I picked it up, I found that the clutch lever was now about two inches shorter than stock (having broken not at the perch, but at the notches Magura puts in the lever for just that purpose). Heh, heh - sorry, fellas. S.R. I was planning to catch a little shut-eye after my midnight run, but when I got off the bike about 1:30 or 1:45 a.m., I was just too wired to even think about sleeping, so I made the decision that I was going to stay up all night - as did Chris. After all, someone had to man the pits, so Chris and I decided we'd both stay up and keep each other company. By about 3:30 a.m., both Chris and I were fighting off Mr. Sandman. At one point, I zonked out for a minute or two with my chin resting on my chest while I sat in one of those "comfortable" $2 plastic chairs. I was tempted to retreat to the motorhome a couple of times, but when sleep was really threatening to take over, I'd usually just get up, walk around and go over and hang out with our neighbors. Man, did they know how to party. And they even won their class! K.P. There are several ways to prepare for your stint during a 24-hour endurance race. The best one I found was sitting in the motorhome with Paul and Scott, watching "On Any Sunday" and getting pumped up for a night ride. K.P. S.B. Although I knew the silt section at the bottom of the back downhill would be bad, I had no idea just how bad it would be at night. There were times when I couldn't see the crossbar. As it turns out, this is where I had my only crash of the race. I hit a silty whoop and hit the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of me. But I was more concerned about something being wrong with the bike than I was about myself. All I wanted to do was make sure I could get it back to the pits. The helmet light saved me here. Without it, I may not have ever even found the bike. Despite our hodgepodge preparation for the race, I had been confident that our limited planning was sufficient, an idea that was supported by our early pit-stop/rider changes. Encouraged by smooth rider changes and fuel additions, we began swapping air filters and lubing the chain, and we even performed a smooth, quick oil change. People I had never seen before were assisting, and ad-guy Rod Hipwell pulled off a rear-wheel/brake-pad swap so flawlessly that even the more professional teams around us were impressed. Around midnight, however, many of the helpers wandered off to bed, and most of our team members did likewise as soon as they would finish a riding stint. Kit and I, therefore, were left to man the pits all night, occasionally dozing off in our plastic lawn chairs for a few minutes, but mainly just sitting, cheering a passing team member, or trudging to the Fun Mover to wake someone up. Next year, we need a nonriding pit marshal. C.J. a U Die n S.B. Our night stints were two laps each, and on my second one, I felt a little less spastic. I had applied no-fog before getting on board, allowing me to keep my goggles on a little longer before once again pulling them off. Perhaps more importantly, I was a little more accustomed to my lack of depth perception, and to properly directing my Niterider helmet light. Around the first lap's completion, I _ _,. • SEPTEMBER 26, 2001 17

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