El Dorado Springs, the race that wasn't! Race Report

[shredder]

Slomojo and I went down to El Dorado this morning. I got out of the house at 6:30, checked both atv's for fuel and Joe's was low on fuel but we were only running one lap to remove all the stuff anyway so off I went. Picked up Joe and got started before 10:00.

We both started up our machines and set out. I got a good start, 2nd into the woods. I tailed Joe hard as we both knew that it was going to be a one lap race to the finish back at the trailer. He started standing to one side and rode side saddle and used his monkey grip hands to rip off the arrows but I noticed he had ribbon coming up. Just as he stopped to cut down the ribbon I made a pass and shot down the hill only to get stuck in the creek crossing. It was much, much deeper than I thought, it even had those crazy greenish areas where it's really deep! Well so much for dry boots! Just as I got going again he took the lead again.

At the halfway point Joe was startled by a wild turkey taking off in front of him so I took advantage of this and passed him again.I had first till we hit that huge tree that the soil was so soft it had just fallen over and blocked the trail and splintered all over the place. I stopped to take pictures and that bonehead Joe passed me again. I cleaned up the area and hith 4th gear to catch up and just as I got behind him I yelled "Joe - you lost your trash way back there!". Joe stops and goes back to get his trash but I had already picked it up and used these precious minutes to get a HUGE lead. I was running up the fast flowing creek and drenched myself as the ATV sinks in a hole and I almost had a fast come-off. Joe passes me again.

He holds on till the trailer when we realize we still need to pull all the wooden stakes out at the start so we blaze down there. You had to be careful as a lot of it was submerged in water. Sometimes the trails looked fine but were really filled up with a silty sludge and made passage difficult for us. I thought I had won the race because Joe's ATV ran out of gas (hee hee), he quickly turns on reserve and we sprint to the trailer for the finish. He beats me because he power slides around two corners and hits 5th before I can. OK dude...OK...But next time....

The water was deep and flowing way too fast, almost scary to think how far it could take a person if they went down in the creeks. The water rushing was very loud too. The ruts were so deep in many places our foot pegs would of had our bikes high centered in many places. What few earthy - non rocky areas we used to pass at were 6 to 8 inches deep mud with criss crossing ruts. It took us over 6 hours to get through on ATV's and they LOVE the mud! There is no way this was going to happen, WOW, I didn't realize just how bad it was down there.
my 2 cents

[Speedysdad]

Great story Dennis, thanks for sharing. I want to hear Joe's side of the story.

[shredder]

The whole point of this narrative was to share my pictures I took with the phone at the site to show my FMHSC family just how bad it was. It is also a beautiful place. Joe mentioned that on race day we are so jacked up that we really miss out on some of the details and the beautiful outdoors. Man Joe locked up those brakes HARD when that turkey took off! It flew a pretty good distance. I guess I would fly away far also if I looked up and saw Joe too!
I emailed the pics to myself and downloaded them but the new operating system has me puzzled....HMMM...now where is that "any" key?

[shredder]

Ok I give up! The new operating system does not have any photo shop stuff so I can shrink the pics to post. Can I email them to anyone so that they might try to post them? There is only 4 or 5 pics but they are worth posting. So if anyone is bored with nothing to do please let me email these to you and we could get them up.