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WOO HOO!!! Goes without at saying this year was far more successful than last year. Perfect weather, strong turn out, interesting but fun (and challenging) course and some really cool folks!

We had a pretty big group of our own. Everhart and I got there Friday afternoon and walked a couple miles or so of the course. Didn't seem like much at first but then we started to see some technical. Then we came up on the paint ball city. Wow that was cool. Looked like a concrete city that had just gone through a holocaust. That was at the halfway point and we had to weave our way through it. It was mostly made of the foam they use to float docks and there were several chunks of it missing when we were done. The foam didn't stand a chance against our bark busters.

The course was a combination of single track woods which was really tight, creek bottoms and dozier roads. All of which were rocky as a son of a gun. There were 3 pretty gnarly hill climbs and again very rocky. Lots of riders had trouble with the hill climbs. However, I saw some riders that were just crazy fast like the rocks weren't even there. Some of them were amazing. And I have to say again, kudos to them on the passing. Maybe a little less patient then a Forward Motion Race but also maybe a little bigger deal in their minds. I never got tangled up or run over by any of them. So thanks to those guys.

After we looked the course of Friday afternoon we got the bikes out and to my astonishment my NEAR PERFECT KTM 250 XC-W was leaking coolant! Son of a @*#%!. What the $%&@. We already had one member on our team that was on a borrowed bike because of mechanical failure, we sure as heck didn't need 2! But what could I do and what was the problem?

Come to find out it was the inner clutch cover gasket right around the water jacket behind the water pump. No way I could ride it unless I could find a gasket. Then I would have to tear it down at the race and put it back together.

Well, I found one and I want to put something out there thanking this guy and letting everyone know about it. I am pretty new to this sport so I was not familiar with this fellow but a lot of you will know him. The guy was Steve Leivan of the MORE Series. He told me it was a more common problem then people knew and did not hesitate to fix me up with the one he had on his rig. The only thing he asked me for was the cost of the gasket to replace it. $21.19 + tax! Hell, at that point he could have charged me anything and I would have gone from camper to camper borrowing money if I had to! LOL. Then Everhart wheeled it up in my trailer and an hour or so later we were topping of the coolant and warming up the bike. No leak and my Orange Crush (Nickname for my bike thanks to Heavy D) started the race for our team and did 6 flawless laps. I only wish I could say the same for the old man hanging on to the handlebars!!

Highlight of the race would be Team Heavy D's Exhaust Repair #292 (Everhart, Hartman and Hartman) took 1st place in the B +35 class, 20th over all and best finish for FMHSC. Had a pretty good turn out for FMHSC but would really like to see a Pro FMHSC team bring home the cup next year. And the money. Paid $1500.00 for 1st place. I think the top 3 Pros in FMHSC should consider it. Come on Macon! You in??? You could buy a lot of tires and gas for your portion of the purse!

Last but not least Jim Stanfield did a really nice deal for the +50 Ironman as a tribute to his dad Mike Stanfield also known to many as Ironman Mike. MORE and the Off Road Cup personal praised Mike for his contributions to the sport and to the MORE series. It was really nice and I am glad they did it. I believe we will all miss Mike Stanfield. Some obviously more than others but I think it would be tough to find too many people that could say much that isn't positive about Mike.

Well, that's about it. In fact that is plenty. If you get a chance to see any highlight video be sure to check it out. It was pretty cool. I have some and may try to post it on YouTube but I am afraid you may fall asleep watching it. You will be able to tell it is not in slow motion when I get passed by the Pros! LOL

Thanks to the MORE crew for putting this on, all of the staff at the race, Mototally for the scoring and a big thanks to the D-Day adventure park for a really cool location. Probably should thank my wife for continuing to let me do this. I know she expects me to outgrow it any day. I sure hope I don't! And as always a big thanks to Letko for letting me be one of the "Cool Guys"!!!

GO TEAM LETKO!

Could not have found a better way to spend a Saturday than at the Off-Road Cup in Wyandotte, Oklahoma. A short 3 hour drive from KC, we weren't sure if it would be red dirt or rocky Ozark land. When we got there, we could see old army vehicles and building that were built to make D-Day Adventure Park look like a WW2 battlefield. It really made the track unique by making us ride between the old town ruins that were built out of styrofoam. (they got beat up from our bark busters) From the looks of the pits, we knew we were in the Ozarks still. The track had some fresh dirt, rocky single track, awesome creek bottoms, tough hills, and faster open trails. Team Apple and Oranges consisted of Brad Stretz, my dad Mark Shafer, and me. We raced in a good sized B class with 15 other teams. Brad started off for us, he claimed the track was very tough as it was covered in leaves and big rocks were yet to be pushed off. We battled from 14th up to 5th where we settled for a little bit. The track cleared up some and the pace picked up. We quickly found ourselves running in 3rd where we seemed to be stuck. Couldn't gain on the leaders and held a comfortable lead on the rest. We got on the podium as 3rd place repping FMHCS. Good job to 1000 cc's of awesome as Jeremy had a tough wreck and Kasey and Aaron held their own for the rest of the day to get 6th in A. Also to my sister who got 2nd in the Ironwoman! She did 10 laps (80 miles) all on her own! I barely did 8 myself. Many other FMHSC riders did well and we held our own as "flatlanders".

Sounds like a great time! I look forward to seeing some InthedirtTV video highlights.

#1036
Looks like a bunch of people are having issues with that inner gasket. Lucky you saw it when you did, people are frying their top ends because of it. I know #740 had the same issue at Walters last year. KTM covered his top end. Cycle Zone caries a different gasket now and there's a heavy duty metal gasket available that guys are having good luck with.

Thats exactly what I was told. Ufortunately all Steve had was an OEM gasket but he gave me a trick. Gonna sound crazy but from what I understand Steve Leivan is a legend and knows almost all there is about a KTM. He told me to put a "THIN" layer of JB Weld around both sides of the gasket. Really probably all I needed to do was the water jacket area but he said the entire gasket and who am I to argue with a legend that just bailed my behind out???!!! Needless to say it may be a little tough to clean off the gasket material if I do need to go in there but I didn't use enough to make getting the cover off a problem.

And as for catching it in time, you're right. Had I ridden it that way by the time I knew it was out of coolant it would have been too late and KTM isn't going to warranty my 2009 regardless how nice a guy I am! LOL

Thanks Brian.

P.S. I watched your Walters Race video from last year before the race this year since I had never raced or riden Walters and heard horror stories. It helped calm my nerves and I actually liked Walters. Only went down once and got a top 5! I'm stoked.

Sounds like you got some good advise! Glad you had a good time at Walters. It was about 50 degrees hotter last year. That added to the suck factor quite a bit.

This years off-road cup was better than last years from the minute we left the house considering we weren't hearing about people pulled into the parking lot or anything crazy like last year! I teamed up with Dylan Crowder and Tanner Slover. I started it off for us and I can honestly say that was the hardest first lap I've ever ridden, the leaves covering loose rock made it really sketchy! I survived the first lap with terrible arm pump so I came in and tanner went out and made up some ground even tho he had just gotten a pin taken out of his thumb 3days before! We stayed in 6th for awhile until tanner had some bad luck and broke his bar clamps off. We lost over a lap and could never make the time back up. Even with a poor finish it was a blast with some great friends and kinda nice to relax and have fun at a race without being as serious! Seeing how the course changed throughout the day was pretty cool also! I like the idea of fresh cut trails without a beaten path allows you to be creative and make several different lines through most sections!

http://youtu.be/2-XcP1txHDI

Alright everybody. The link above is one full lap at the 2014 9 HR. If you fall asleep watching it please keep it to yourself. My only intention here is to let those of you who were not able to attend the race see the course. Not show off! LOL (Pretty obvious anyway). Hope you enjoy. The course was pretty cool. And yes, the first lap was a mother. Fortunately the C+35 row was the last row to start so at least most of the leaves were gone. However, the rocks were still there and they were a butt kicker.

Enjoy.

Gibbs check your pm

Sorry everybody. I am a YouTube moron! Video is now set to public.

Thanks.