Haydn Franklin’s Red River Race Report
Race Report – Haydn Franklin Texas State Championship Enduro Circuit (TSCEC)
Red River Enduro – Bulcher, Texas November 13, 2011
The final race of the TSCEC season is my favorite event of the season. My long-time friends – Dean Lane, Todd Slavik and Donny Alumbaugh were on my row again this year, which makes for good stories and laughs at the restarts.
We had a three mile transfer to get warmed up before heading into the Pipeline section for the first test of the day. The property got several inches of rain the week prior and also a few days prior so conditions were epic and I was off to a great start finishing second in the test.
We rode past the famed Red Bull barn to transfer over to the next four mile test getting into the rocks a little more and some ups and downs through the creeks and all. I put in another solid ride to again take second.
The restart to the third test was right at the finish to the other so we waited for our minute telling stories about our “greatness” in that section. This test was six mile of fast, flowing trail ending up in the deep sand river bed at camp, which provided a lot of entertainment for the many fans watching from the banks.
We were then off to Bill’s Woods for test sections five and six where things were tight and technical making the Enduro Engineering hanguards priceless! The combination of the flowing track design and velcro-ish dirt put a serious smile on my face, but the highlight of this section was how much we laughed about Lane and I having to pass Slavik about a mile into the section. Apparently he was keying off us a little ahead of him and found a trick line… karma fixed him later with a flat front to end his day.
We transferred a couple miles back to camp to gas, but back at the van the carnage from Bill’s Woods had claimed Slavik with the flat and Lane with a broken clutch line leaving just Alumbaugh and I to the long course third loop.Test seven was up into Doc Mike’s section of six miles of technical trail dropping us back into the creek bed to the B course finish and the start of test eight, which was the last of the day and A riders only.
With Slavik, Lane, and Alumbaugh all enjoying a rehydration beverage at this point – I checked into the Costa Rica section used in the final Last Man Standing event. This was a three mile test of highly technical trail at the end of a great enduro. Seat Time was in the section filming the A riders and their awesomeness – be sure to go to their website atseattime.co to check them out.
I ended up second on the day and the GasGas 300XC race model could not have been better. The hours of training I’ve been putting in each week have made a definite improvement in my race performance and recovery. Getting back in the gym Monday nights to train is no issue.
A little shout out to my girlfriend, Jennifer Webb who won her 3rd TSCEC Championship this year – her second one to include all three divisions.
Up next is Round 2 of TORO in Thackerville, Oklahoma this weekend, Thanksgiving after that then a week of SCUBA diving.
THANK YOU ALL for your support! Haydn Franklin #28
Sponsors: GasGas, SMS Racing, MSR, Tucker Rocky, Silkolene, Enduro Engineering, Scott USA and Allusion Graphics.
