12 Hours of Fun

What better way to spend a day than to spend it on a bike. We took that quite literally as we entered a team in the CORCS 12hr race rightfully named, The Longest Day. We were encouraged to enter and join multiple Wyoming based teams heading down to Colorado Springs to embark on the challenge, but as we got closer to the event we lost a few racers to injuries in the weeks leading up to race day. This put into action some phone calls to some old riding buddies going back to high school. One close friend I’ve kept in touch with was my first call. He agreed and was even able to recruit another old riding buddy, Dave. This meant we were one short of a full four-person team. The week of I reached out to the little brother of a high school classmate that my only real knowledge of was that he was a suggested friend on Instagram a couple years ago and I saw he raced bikes (that’s enough to be cool in my book). I reached out to him, Shane, and asked if he was interested and he quickly agreed.

Now, a week out and with almost no preparation, other than commitment to the date, we started a group message. to make a plan. Our two motocross riders, Clint and Dave both decided they would race 250f model bikes thinking they would cause less fatigue as the day wore on… ***That’s a bold strategy cotton lets see how it works out.** Shane and I opted for 450s knowing a little bit more about what we were getting into. This ended up being the correct choice by the way.

Anyways how it goes with anything you try to prepare for, there is going to be a variable or two. We’ve had an especially dry summer so why wouldn’t we have rain the entire night and morning before the event. As we pulled into the muddy parking lot, it became obvious that no one in our group wanted to be the first one out. What that meant was I was going to go first. We made the plan that we would trade off riders every two laps and lucky for everyone else on the team, the course dried up really nice after my first time out. Now with two laps complete, my bike was now about 100lbs heavier with mud than it was when I unloaded it.

We made it through our first couple rotations that shared three separate motocross tracks, Ram Off-Road Park, Aztec Raceway, and Wildrat Raceway that were all connected with some off-road trails and ravines. I continued to get more comfortable as the day went on putting up faster laps as the course became more familiar. One of the toughest parts about the whole event was trying to remember what the feature up ahead was. This was because the majority of the jumps on all three tracks had blind landings, so I continued to second guess myself on the size of each jump. Was I about to hit a 40ft jump or was it a hip that had a steep downhill into a corner? I got that one wrong one lap and sent the hip all the way to the bottom of the corner, what seemed like 20 feet below the take off. Thanks to my MX Tech Lucky suspension and the huck valve I was able to ride away :)

Dave was our data analyst for the day with his fancy Garmin smartwatch. After each rotation he came back in with a report of his heart rate, calories burned and lap times. This was critical information so we knew how much we could eat between laps. The short answer was just eat all day. Shane was our hype man and kept the mood in the pits up. Every time he came back in he was encouraging Clint next in line to “GET AFTER IT!” With upwards of an our and a half between rides, this energy was awesome to have around. Clint was our tired and true, coming back in and telling me how to hit certain jumps I was too scared to hit the time before. As for me, I was there because it was my idea. I did my laps, found my way around the course mostly safely with only one wreck. That was a win for me.

As the day drug on we started to plan out the last couple laps and figure who was going to have to be the last one out and how many laps they could knock out before time expired. Additionally, would they be able to see as the sun started to set. None of us brought a bike with a light so it was going to just come down to who was out there when the time came. Shane went out last at 7:26pm with the organizers planning end the race at promptly 8:00pm. This meant Shane could squeeze in two laps before time expired as long as the laps went smooth. We watch him come through at 7:42 and cheer him on as he rides by knowing we’ll just squeak in the final lap. Two minutes before time expires Shane came though again and was awarded the checkers.

Results were tallied and we landed exactly where we predicted and got 5th in our class of 16 teams, we finished just 2 minutes behind 4th which I think we can chalk up to our hand offs. We were switching riders every two laps, the team in 4th was switching every three. The down side of our 2 lap exchanges was that every time you came through the pits it would cost you about 40-50 seconds as you navigated back to the race course. All in all not bad for a team scrapped together in a week and a half with little knowledge of what we were getting into. It was great seeing some old familiar faces and seeing how we stacked up. While this is an annual event for CORCS, and we won’t get a chance for redemption until next year, this may have been the inspiration we need to get WORRA to put one on here in Wyoming.

Post Race Update:

After getting home and cleaning off the bike it was tucked away for a couple days before a mid week ride. Once geared up and ready to go, the ol’ Husky reveled some war wounds from the mud and abuse. I looked down as I was riding away from the truck to try to identify if I had broke a spoke or something that was causing a metal on metal noise on the back of the bike. Hopping off and upon further inspection I found my rear wheel bearings to be the culprit. Unfortunately for me and the wheel, the damage went a little beyond the bearings and took out the hub as well. Remounted the 19” mx wheel and now were back in business.

The FC450 didn't even notice the extra drag and was able to push right through the failure 

I think if I can find the remaining ball bearings we can put this back into commission