Cracker HS

[Stumpy]

All I can say is... MUD. I hated mud before this race... now I cringe at the thought of riding in clay-based mud. I couldn't get into a good flow and got worn out from fighting the bike through the ruts. I got stuck several times and over heated the bike pretty good towards the end of my first lap, so I took it to the truck. There was a lot of confusion in the first race as to where the trail went. I spoke with several riders who took the wrong trail and got very lost. I would have been awesome if it was dry...

[YAMAKAZE]

Stumpy...Sorry to hear about the mud fest...I was going to participate myself, until last Thursday when I found out that they had closed the entire area because of the trail conditions. After looking at the weather channel later that day and seeing more rain moving in, all I could see in my mind was that MUD FEST that we got slammed by in Macon for the GNCC. A friend of mine (Bobby - Mr Suzuki or The Iron Legged Man) called me about 3pm yesterday and told me about how bad it was...Man I'm glad I decided to use this weekend for Bike Maintenance instead.

Are you going to Loretta's this weekend ? Weather channel say's things are iffy at best. Calling for Rain on Fri-Sat-and a possibility on Sun. Man those massive Hill Climbs and Downhills are going to be insane! I was going to camp, but just decided to have the wife start calling around for a hotel room instead. Good Rubber will be the ticket for Sunday morning....I'm going to buy a new D773 on Sat....at $50.00 it's worth it...

Hope to see you there.....

Bill

Bonzai ?

[Ga426owner]

Bonzai, who has 773's for $50.00? I want one...

[YAMAKAZE]

You can purchase 773's and 756's for $50.00 at the GNCC races. But first you have to pull your pants back up from around your ankles and get to one of these races....

Hmmmm...Just happens to be one this coming weekend.

Where will you be when the Green Flag drops at Loretta Lynns GNCC this weekend....

I outta open this one up for bet's...whatcha think?

Bonzai ?

[Stumpy]

I won't be making it to Loretta's this weekend. I'm not up to three race weekends in a row right now. I've got a business meeting in Asheville for the rest of the week and I need to spend some time at home next weekend. The 10+ hour drive and the weather forecast aren't helping my desire, either.

[YAMAKAZE]

Man I have been laughing my A$$ off all morning about the Cracker HareScramble..(I know Greg and the gang worked real hard to get this thing set up...Murphy's Law) I hear that the name was unofficially changed to the Ant Hill Harescramble because everyone was going in different directions....

I also heard that there is some protesting and Cat fighting going on because the winner of the womens class appearently either had a levitating motorcycle or a secret mud repelling formula that kept off the mud bath that everyone else took. hmmmmmmmmmm.....

I even had a friend (Who is color blind follow the wrong arrow) that went down the wrong trail for 10 miles and still managed to finish 12th.....Go figure...

I would have loved to have seen it..but I'm glad my shrouds didn't come in on time.

Bonzai ?

[Greg_in_Atlanta]

Hello folks, Greg here:

Yep, Mother Nature just wasn't on our side last weekend. It rained steadily from Friday evening until Saturday around 6:00 pm. The area had already had some rain earlier in the week. Needless to say that clay soil really loved to hold on to that water! I have seen worse mud, but I can't remember exactly when.

Yes, we had a few souls decide to follow blue on white arrows and green on white arrows, or follow whatever trail they happened to be following instead of the arrows we marked the course with (red on white). The 4 "errant" riders I spoke to admitted that we informed them at the riders meeting to follow the red/white. I personally checked the turn they went straight through...marked right turn, but they must have felt "straight" was better. About 8 riders (250C class) took the senic detour out of 128 entrants in the first race. Those riders that whinned and complained alot were reimbursed their entry fee. They wanted to be reimbursed AND get back on their bikes and "finish" the race. I informed them they could do one or the other, not both. None of the second race guys got lost (that I know of).

I am truly sorry that some people did not have a good time. All I can say is anyone who thinks it is easy promoting one of these things needs to get about 10 or their buddies together and organize an event themselves.

All problems were weather related; we were forced to reroute Saturday (believe it or not we rerouted around a really bad area) which led the trail through one of Durhamtowns heavily used/mulitple trail areas. We tried to cover most of the other colored arrows. But, the other criss-crossing trials were too confusing for some.

During the first race and second race we had no less than 10 people in the woods rerouting trail around mudholes........but with about a million mud holes, well, there was only so much we could do. We had seversl ham radio stations set up on the course helping identify the worst spots, and for safety reasons (to identify any injured riders ASAP).

It was really too bad it was so wet......it could have been so nice for everyone involved. Our small club put in over 500 man-hours on the trail. We cut and arrowed 13.3 miles, but used only 10.4 miles because we felt one section had too may stumps and logging debris in it. It is ironic that this area probalby would have held up much better than the "woods" trial.

Regarding the protests; there is an established proceedure for filing a protest. A protest must be substantiated by course marshals (we had 10 positions) or witnesses, and/or race results/timing. Anyone want to protest shoudl follow the established proceedure. Yep, I heard something about the cat-fight. Too bad I missed it, I was in the woods cutting new trail.

Randy Hawkins said he had a great time by the way. He is really something to watch.

Our third palce overall was Russell Bobbit......16 years old.

A big THANKS to those that showed up. I truly do hope you did not have a miserable time - you would have had a GREAT time if the course had been dry. Special Thanks to those spectators that helped pull bikes from mudholes; helped reroute trail, etc. Thanks to those riders that were understanding and didn't complain about the trail conditions.

Time to get over it and move on.

Greg

[YAMAKAZE]

Greg...You and the Cracker Motorcycle Club did an outstanding job of getting this thing together..Please do not take anything I said as Criticism, I thought it was hiliarious, but because of the weather and the extreme stories I was hearing.

As a SETRA member I have nothing but resect for you folks that went out of your way to set this event up.

Bill

Bonzai ?

[Greg_in_Atlanta]

Thanks Bill,

No offense taken. You should have come just to spectate............it WAS a site to see. From those folks that cannot follow arrows, to the cat-fight, to watching Randy ride through the slop like it was just another Sunday ride, it was really something.

Thanks

Greg