Lone Star National Enduro

Ride Report
By
Scot Shepherd

Well here goes... Sunday May 21, 2000, my first national enduro. Preface: I had no expectations for this event other than to check out a National Enduro and see the difference between the way they are run from regular TSCEC events.

The race was near Lubbock - "only" a 5.5 hour drive away - so I left early Saturday. It was an uneventful drive and I was greeted at the gate by a very friendly LTR club member and given the quick rundown of the event and invited to park anywhere. I found a convenient spot and started to unload. Then I heard to call for 'supper'. The Lubbock Honda shop was providing free food so I took a break to down some good stuff, pasta and burgers. Thanks guys!

My sound test was a disappointing number (not provided - to protect the guilty) but I obviously need to do something here... I "passed".

The long course is totally separate from the short course after the first mile marker so someone else will have to speak to the conditions of the short course. We got about an hours worth of fairly heavy rain between 3 and 4am. This changed what would have been miserably dry conditions into near perfect starting conditions for the race. And for a change, there were no generators running near my tent after 10pm. This time it was my own fault I didn't sleep...

Breakfast was provided in the morning by the local Kawasaki dealer. Thanks again guys!! And I was ready to race. 133.2 course miles seemed like a long race but being in the desert I was expecting mile after mile of open trail. I'm sure there was plenty of that available, but for some reason they didn't use it...

I picked Row 25 to ride with a AA, A, A Senior, and Open B rider. Unfortunately, the A and AA riders didn't show at the line so timekeeping wise I was on my own. Thank goodness for the watchdog. Pardon the brief digression here but the watchdog got lots of attention at this event. They raffled one off at the riders meeting. Of course I already have one that works perfectly as long as you don't coil your extra length of sensor wire which can confuse the counter(true of other computers as well). There was an ICO rep there and he was curious about why I bought the Watchdog. I just said features and price. He said "but we have all the features and also the low price" I said simply "and can you view key seconds, possibles countdown, and race second (ahead or behind) all at the same time?" He said "well no" and walked away...

Anyhow the race starts and we get about 5 miles of relatively easy terrain. Lots of sharp turns around mesquites, but with short runs in between allowing better than 24mph average speed. The short rest before the first check was the last rest I'd see for about 60 miles.

After the first check we headed into the "Rambo" section. For anyone who has not seen it, you just can't get a good description... I certainly can't do it justice. It is the knarliest section of trail I've ever had to ride After a little more than a mile in we come up on a hill that riders are stuck on. After waiting a couple minutes an AA rider from a few rows back hollers up to us that "somebody has got to do something, we'll never get out of here at this rate". He was right so despite not having anywhere to go I head off the trail to the left up a nasty ravine and then conveniently at about the right spot I made a hard right and came into the trail just above where everyone was getting stuck. Now I didn't know that this line was there, and it was not an easy one either, but it gave us a way around and anyone fortunate enough to have been behind me was able to take that way up the hill.

By the end of Rambo which seemed like 30 miles ( I guess it was only about 6 miles) and all of 11 miles into a 133.2 mile race I've already mentally given up. I felt like if this sort of terrain was going to be sprinkled throughout the remaining course I'd be lucky to finish at all so that's where I set my goal. Just finish... From that point on I did not care how I came out in the end. I just wanted to say I'd finished and I rode that way. I went fast when I could and I went slow when I was tired (most of the time). I've never been passed so much in any other race I've been to. I'd get to a reset, normally a place to rest but instead I move from 13 minutes late to only 3, gotta keep moving... I didn't catch the clock and didn't rest until the second gas stop (10 minutes scheduled, but when you get there 7.5 minutes late, you get the picture...)

I gassed, refilled my now empty 72oz Camelback with water, doused my whole body with water and took off... Only 65 miles to go!!

Fortunately they never sent us back into Rambo like terrain but there was still plenty of variety of fast trail to slow switchbacks in the sand through the mesquites, then a rock hill to climb. I dropped the bike on one of those rocks after having made it up it. The process of picking up the bike resulted in me dropping it on my right hand smashing it between guards and rock, and then it rolled back down the rock face I had successfully climbed in the first place...

I had one other episode where I just stalled the bike for no reason on a relatively fast piece of trail and couldn't get the bike to restart for nothing. I spent at least 2-3 minutes before getting it to fire off and get me going again. Then at 113 miles we get to the Grass track special test. There are crowds of people and even professional looking camera's all along the track. I've been riding easy for awhile (remember my goal at this point is simply to finish) and so I get thinking about all these people watching and how embarrassing it will be if someone that knows me sees me just cruising through so I nail it as fast as I can. Damn track was full of braking bumps already at each turn and coming out of them. I almost went down a few times but at least I had the throttle pegged and was going through the gears and braking hard into each turn. I impressed myself with how much energy I had found. Of course I used all of it in those 3 miles and still had 24 to go :-(

I remember thinking to myself nearly constantly that you're almost there. Checking the mileage, seemed like I'd gone a mile but nope only 1/4... damn keep going... Finally I come up on the last test section which is a 3 mile run down the wide sandy creekbed, again lined with spectators and cameras. This was a truly wide open section here and I did my best to put on a show. I stood up and pegged it and tapped her out in fifth. The hard part at that speed is following the sparse trail marking. After all I didn't "know" that we were going to stay in the creekbed to the end so I kept veering from one side of the creekbed to the other watching for the ribbons and trying to maintain speed. My clutch started slipping in fifth oh no!! Only 1 mile to go and I'm about to roast a clutch...

I made it to the finish. There were lots of congratulations and pats on the back pulling out of the creek bed. I couldn't say anything so "Thanks" to anyone who might still be reading that was there. Overall the event was well organized, I didn't need any of the food I brought with me, I met lots of great people and had the race of my life. It was a truly great experience and I was glad it was over...

The best part of it all is... I got 1st place 4 stroke B!! I've been batting 1000% at getting 2nd in enduros. Every enduro I've run(6), I've gotten 2nd in my class until this one, where I had mentally given up at only about 10 miles into the race... No expectations, no worries, just finish uninjured (well except for my hand).

The other first for me is this is the first race that I didn't hit a tree. Something that I've always attributed to the stress of 'racing' combined with the fatigue of having 40+ miles behind you. I didn't have that this time because I'd already given up and was just riding as best as I felt like I could at the moment. Maybe that's my new strategy.

Wish me luck at the next one, and I'll see you there.