Off Road Cup Race Reports

[shredder]

OK Boys and Girls! Lets's Here 'em!

HMmmmm HMmmmm.......wirefryer?......Gibber....Pumpkin Patch?....

[Pumpkinpatch]

OK Boys and Girls! Lets's Here 'em!

HMmmmm HMmmmm.......wirefryer?......Gibber....Pumpkin Patch?....

Sorry Brother Dennis.
Hands still not working quite right.

Short story.
Great fun race.
Great partners with Mr Grun and Mr LeRette. Thanks guys for putting up with an over the top, over the hill, wish I was still fast old man.

A chilly morning greeted me at the start (apparently, the young one gets to start ). We got a good launch and ran at the front for a while. We saw the front of the pack most of the day and had a great race finishing 3rd behind some fast "experienced gentlemen". Though one could hardly feel bad about finishing behind some of the very best names in the Midwest off-road world. All in all, proud to join the 50+ crowd.

The track was just what you expect after 5 inches of rain there. Wet, rutty, rocky, gnarly. Perfect stuff to see what you have in the 'tank'. I'm happy to only have added a few new blisters to the collection. Great track that anyone that missed out needs to rethink what they have going on the Saturday before Easter.

Ran into many old friends and passed, and got passed by many of them.
That's what you do over the course of 9 hours.

And, to top it all off. I was proud to see son, daughter, in laws, friends from Chicago all ripping it up in the name of dirty bike racing!

[shredder]

Well I was THERE folks and Mr Shaffer saying "my hands were blistered" is an under statement to say the least. Mark my dear man, to me your hands were "blistered" and calluses ripped off even BEFORE the race. Then racing as fast as your team flies, thru the multiple cold - wet water creek crossings on a track that has land mines every 5 feet demanding a good grip on the bars - man I didn't even have the stomach to even look at your hands at the end of that day my friend. I am a remodeler and worked construction my whole life and I know what torn up hands are and what they feel like but yours set the bar.

I'm still digesting and taking it all in, this was my first team race and it was cool racing ALL DAY. I always wondered what it was like in NASCAR to come in and pit. I did carefully come in at the 10 MPH as requested but as soon as I saw Gibber I banged the limiter and screamed at Gibber like a train was coming to get him as jacked up as I could, handed off the baton and he was gone! Too cool, too cool. Our team (Todd Sexton, Steve Gibbs and myself) was awesome!

Oh yeah!
Mark I especially appreciated you coming in and after your first rounds helping me with good intel of what was waiting out there for me as I was waiting my turn wondering what was out there. I've been off my bike for six straight months after getting the broken foot and wrist handled and my front grill rebuilt I had a lot of cobwebs to clear out and not getting to pre ride the course kinda amped up my anxiety about the course. After listening to you I was able to make some heat and let her eat like I used too.

The doctor says I'll be able to sit in a chair comfortably AND actually look BOTH ways, without pain, in about a week and I'm really looking forward to my normal stride again instead of just shuffling my feet along. I ate Apple Bee's nacho's tonight while watching some basketball and was reminded very quickly of the tree branch I took to the face, lips and nose! Whooo chee ma ma!
Heck tomorrow I might even tie my own shoes!

I'll post something when I get to the point where only 5 or 6 things really still stick out. So much happened from the moment I left home Friday morning to the moment we tore down that it was a lot to take in. Too cool. Too cool.
BRAP!

[JayShafe8]

The Offroad Cup was once again a day filled of action and fun. We got to DDay Adventure Park around 8pm Friday and survived the cold night sleeping in our trailers. Saturday morning was an early one as racing began at 8am!

For our race, we started off with Kasey (#3) leading the charge. Second in line was Jeremy (#6), and I played clean up by going third. We tried to do 2 laps a piece until the final 2 hours when we mix and matched a few runs to conserve energy. We were in 7th at that point, but found ourselves into 5th with our late charge. Sadly we should have tried that tactic earlier to go for landing on the podium. Oh well.

Side notes from my race: I had a lot of fun in most sections, however those ruts were getting mighty deep. It was a fun challenge to pick through 4+ lines for about 1 mile of trail trying to stay out of deeper ruts. My day also consisted of watching Dennis get stuck on the wrong side of an inclined turn and running into the back of Steve Grun. (Sorry Steve)

Anyways, congrats to all of the FMHSC riders who competed, I know we had a lot and we showed that we are very competitive with the other local series. Also thanks to my teammates Kasey and Jeremy for a fun day!

[jstr244]

As Jared said, we had a great time out at TOC!

The day started out early around 6AM with a short walk to check out the start, prep the motorcycle, and load up to stock our pit area with food, drinks, fuel, and all the other necessities. I got to watch Lauren start off for her lady team before heading back to get geared up for my trip out to the track.

Kasey came in after two laps nearly leading the A class, talk about some high expectations to live up to! I went out and just couldn't find a groove at all, just stunk up the trail and our team fell back to 5th in class. I just didn't have a good feel for the bike; my suspension was stiff and was giving me fits! I couldn't have been happier to hand off the reigns to Jared, who I knew could pick up some spots.

While he was out I made some suspension and power valve changes to help with the conditions to ready myself for the second trip out. My next trips out were much, much better! I felt way more comfortable and was having a blast. From there our team just had difficulty picking up any positions and we settled into 6th place hanging around two minutes off the 5th place team. As Jared said, with about 2 hours left to go we strategized a bit and came up with a plan to have Kasey (our fastest) run a 1 lap sprint, followed by two consistent laps from me, a 1 lap sprint from Jared (who also dipped down below a 23 minute lap time), and then a final all-out sprint by Kasey again! We hoped this would push us up into 5th place.

When Kasey came around from his sprint we were still about 2 minutes back from 5th place. I watched while waiting for Kasey to come around to see what the 5th place rider looked like so I could put a mark on him if I ever caught him out on the track. As Kasey came through we made a clean hand-off of the bracelet and I took off! I rode a solid first lap and cut the lead by 30 seconds. I rode a strong lap two trying to gain even more time on 5th and by the time I got out to the rocky ledged hill after the second creek, I found my target, 5th place! I recognized the blue/white riding gear instantly and pushed hard to catch him by the final dash through all of the creeks. He turned around and must have recognized the red backgrounds on my number plate because he lit out and began covering me with as much water and mud as possible! By the end of the Colorado trail type hill I was still just behind his rear wheel. I made my move around the outside heading into the rutted corner section just before the finish and put our team in 5th place!

Jared and Kasey were waiting in pit row and we made a clean hand-off with Jared taking to the track fresh and ready to rip it up for one final fast lap. Jared came through and had built up a 45 second lead on the 6th place team leaving Kasey a comfortable lead heading into his last lap. As we planned it, Kasey sprinted it out for the last lap of the race and we ended up 5th on the day and 11th O/A. Nice job guys!

It was great fun seeing all of the FMHSC teams and families out there. Looking at the results, it appears that we had a great showing from a wide variety of classes. Nice work everyone!

[shredder]

Nuts and bolts - Pulled in Friday around lunch time and hooked up with Gibber, picked a spot and set up camp. Todd pulled in and just like the track the ground at first held up firmly which gets you to commit , then squishes out like quick sand and his RV was stuck. We tried and tried but ended up using our FMHSC family to hand pull the trailer off and the great folks at D-Day got out the bulldozer and had everything right as rain in no time. I was almost mad at how easy the dozer pulled the class A out but heck - it's all good!

Our camp had many visitors and lots of food, fun and conversation so the evening went quickly. Andy came down from Yellowwood and that was cool. That guy really makes us look great out there on the track. Don't forget to go check out the pics because he has a lot of great ones. My favorite still picture is Devon Turleys smiling mug somewhere in the pits I guess. We all made fools of ourselves around the propane campfire. I will save my story that brought the house down for a later rendezvous. Wirefryer and I got our schedules in sync like this - 5am to 6 am was "me" time, 6am to 7am we cooked up some grub for the guys, 7am to 8 am was "get your butt ready and on the line!" .

Race Report - The race started and Gibber's bike didn't lite up right away so he didn't get the start he wanted. He put down 3 laps with good times then Todd set out and layed down 3 more good laps and it's my turn. I thought I was relaxed and at my "happy place" except for the 8 track tape playing in my head "don't get hurt, keep it on the wheels, don't get hurt, keep it on the wheels - etc. I was able to blow out the evil gremlins in my head by the first turn on this first race back since the crash.

I realized quickly that my visor on the new helmet was way too low limiting my vision on every uphill or looking back (why didn't I check that?), my over tweaked suspension was all wrong (played with it TOO much ..Tom - HELP!) and the decision to add air to my tires as a rock/flat deterrent was bouncing and slamming me so badly my neck took a pounding and I was deflecting off of everything. Lap 1 was very stinky as I fought the bike every inch of the way even though Papa Punkin warned me NOT to. (oh well - I guess I hear but I did't listen!). Lap 2 - I settled in and went to work, got up on the pegs and let her rip and that really smoothed things out a bit, felt much better and relaxed, focused and had a good time. Lap 3 I tried to blast through the creek crossings and found out how powerful and cold the water really was. I figured the cold creek water would refresh me and improve my lap times...(another bad idea)... Now with a wet face I start having fogging issues with my glasses under my goggles, boots that weigh 10 lbs each from being filled with water and my crotch felt like I was storing blocks of ice "all up in there" (for sure).

My teammates held tough and had good lap times, but I'm afraid my last 2 laps my body wasn't up for the task. I'll just flat out say it - I am out of shape dude! All on my own I went down - off trail to let a passer by and bobbled it and it took me forever to get my bike back up and going again. I was at least glad no one saw me mess things up in that easy part but...but... but... oh no! Jared slips by and I'm BUSTED! Oh well! On my last lap I got smacked by a tree branch loaded up by the racer in front of me with his own set of problems and even lost my goggles in the process. I got up and found my glasses and burned outta there but that was it - nothing left - even survivor mode was a fantasy. I pushed hard just to make it back the last 2 miles.

It was a great atmosphere all day, loved the whole pit row thing, loved hanging out with my Forward Motion Family and friendly faces. It was different for me because I found out I need to know where I'm at in the unfolding race, locate my targets and hunt them down and score. Hunting down specific targets on a given day is how I roll - it's how I keep myself motivated. This race I just didn't feel "The eye of the tiger" like I usually do. I'll get it back, I just have to work on it.

I can't say I had a bad weekend but I was disappointed that my game face was left at home. I really would have like it to go out there and get that 4th place position in reach and then to have Gibber or Todd seal the deal but ok, oh well. Our team ended 5th and held on and pounded it out all day and finished in 5th out of 6 teams. Better than being last!

Oh well - all in all I'll give it a 9 out of 10. It was a fun, fun event and got to watch a lot of familiar FMHSC faces stick together and laugh together.

As a side note if you ever wondered what the cutest baby in the whole world looks like you just have to go and see baby punkin patch! Yep! What a cutie pie!

The music is starting to play so I'll step down now!

[blister]

Great all around experience for me. I arrived Friday PM. My wife and youngest son joined me for the fun. Trial run in the new Toy Hauler. Camped next to Shredder, Wirefryer, Lauren and the gang. Had some shrimp off the barbie compliments of Wirefryer. Felt very supported by the whole FM gang.

Race day: Man, I am slow and there were some really fast guys from the +35 Ironman Class (me...not one of them)! Jeez-lou-eez, I think a couple of those guys lapped me twice. The course was much fun and challenging for me. Had some trouble the first go around on the big steep hill with all the baseball sized red rocks and I've decided I need to work on my deep-muddy-rut riding skills. Those things exhausted me. "Blisters", yep got a few of those on the palms, thumbs and places the sun don't shine. My plan was to pace myself, thinking that some of those fast starters I would catch later. Nope! Those fast starters from my class just kept going fast and going fast...crazy. I stopped having fun at 6 hours but decided to "man-up" and keep going one lap at a time. At 6 hours and about 10 min my body and brain went into serious "shut down" mode. That was tough lap. Couldn't do anything right. Even confused clutch for front brake. Serious brain malfunctioning. Finished this lap around the seven hour mark. Thought I'd rest and see about another. Yeah right, took me about 10 minutes to decide I was done.

Awesome pit support. I pulled in first time at 2.5 hours. Wirefryer and Lauren immediately there to service and check the bike over. My wife got me food and Gatorade. Someone pulled and reloaded my water pack. Silva came by to encourage. All pretty cool stuff.

Only downer was jacking-up my lower back. Freakin old man, I must be! Hurt it setting up my pit Friday night. Disgusting! Bent over to un-package a tarp and "TWING". Loaded up on the vitamin I, iced and stretched all night. Never bothered me during the race, but I really torched it again washing all that mud off on Sunday. Started a Medrol Dose Pack yesterday and starting now to see some relief. I haven't walked normal for 3 days. Makes me pretty doubtful for Walter's Ranch, but we'll see. Might just take some extra time and recover for Big Springs.

Thanks to everyone who supported and helped out. Gibber, you da-man with that race shop on wheels...thanks for the air. You too Shredder, that 4 wheeler of yours was much appreciated. I had a real positive experience at this Off-Road Cup. Hey, and my wife was real impressed too. She thought you a great bunch of guys, as well. I'd look to do it again next year, but I think I will be looking for a couple of teammates. The "Ironman" experience is officially checked off of my bucket list...Holy Cow.

I'm working on a video.

Chad

[shredder]

Chad...Tell you what brah...I'm checking off the "ironman" thing off the bucket list too, even though I didn't run it. After watching Andrew Sexton and yourself pounding it out, well, I guess I don't need to do THAT after all!

By the way...

Your lower back just called, so I know that your back is out. If you would like to get your back back (back - back lol! get it!?), then skip Walter's Ranch compadre. Your back is feeling neglected and unappreciated...like its not a priority anymore and really wants more of your undivided attention. I'm staying home to set up a swingset for my three year old grandson's birthday and celebrate on Sunday during the Walter's race weekend. Just tell everyone your helping me and we can battle at Big Springs! I don't want to race the old, slow, broken down, sad, puny Chad...nope. I want the Chad out on the track that I know, the one who pushes ya till either he passes ya or you learn to respect ol Mr Blister!!!

You got nothin to be ashamed of my friend.

BRAP!

just sayin...

[blister]

Dennis...sound advice. I know I should listen. My back sure thinks so, anyway. Don't know if I can stand the thought of Gibber, Sexton, Wirefryer and the rest of those Vet40 masters getting a race in without at least of us there mixing it up, though. See you at Big Springs.

[blister]

Had some technical difficulties but hope it works now. Video my son and I made highlighting my Off-road Cup experience. Get past the pictures and it's clips basically from my first lap. Tried to get most of the fun and/or technical elements in there.

http://youtu.be/s4rChTVGKPc