was anyone in Texas 4 the AMA enduro 1st round last weekend..i wuz...LONG road trip!

[warning: get a pint of your favorite brew, i have diarrhea of the hands since i had such a great trip over 6 daze....]
OK,
so i seem to have Encyclopedia Schumptanica syndrome again, but whatever...
i just finished the longest road trip i've made in 2.5 years...and it was all to go to a bike race!
but admittedly, i had a blast, and as i bought my old racing teammate's 16v jetta for $500 and he dropped it off in front of my house on the way down, it did 2 things:
1) keep me from having to drive 4 hrs to the poconos to pick it up
2) payed Glenn's diesel bill for his chevy 2500 crew cab truck which we hauled his bike and Des Conboy's other KTM to texas in...
so it was "only" 1250 miles each way, but a great time, and a nice little vacation. we spent 2 nights on the way down, and drove all the way home straight on the way back. left the Pizza Slut in Gilmer, TX at 'bout 7pm Sunday night after everyone i came with collected a trophy, and arrived back in northern VA about 1:30pm Monday afternoon...ONLY 17hrs or so.
but his truk definitely didn't get the 20mpg it gets while doing 60mph.....
it was hella fun, and i took about 1500 pictures, even caught a few hot texass asses in the foreground in front of bikes cresting the burm by the timing tent (i SWEAR...it was an accident!...doah, should have shot more of them!)
oh well...
but anyhow, my old Hot Shoe Racing teammate Glenn Cordova (we wrenched
SCCA Formula cars, mostly continentals and fords together in the summer/fall of 1999 at what WAS one of the greatest road courses in north America, where the shop was till July....aka Bridgehampton, NY)
so i haven't seen this "kid" since i drove from VT down to road A for a SCCA race in april 2001 to crew for my Formula SAE mentor vic seaber, but he's since had 2 kids and is "mr. mom" as his wife teaches elementary school...yada yada....one of the reasons he needed to get back home, to quit paying a babysitter, etc.
but all in all, it was SWEEEEET!
it snowed in DC on the way out, or it was planning on doing it wed @ midnight, we left 1 hr be4...
it snowed in the WAAAAAAAAY 2 long state of Tennessee where we drove till 6am and got a motel room for 8 hrs, then again in one of the more boring states in the universe, aka Arkansas, and we parked the truk bout 11pm friday night.
yada yada yada....
i'm just happy with the fun we had and the cheese cutting boards they won!
Glenn managed 1st in 86-200B, Des Conboy-his KTM was also in our truck, he got to fly down there...(former road racer and Irishman) got 6th in his class, B250, and the 'old fart' who we used to race against Chris fahan got 2nd in B super senior.
yeee haw!
granted, Glenn put about $1000 or so parts into his KTM to freshen it up be4 the race, but it was worth it since it hadn't been done yet and it worked out well and all.
the weirdest part to me was the plethora of KTM's there.
of the 380 bikes racing, I'd say at LEAST 75% of them were KTM's.
i know they're built in austria, but as another racer suggested, i think those things breed in the woods cause they were EVERYWHERE!
on a really cool techy side note, anyone ever seen a AWD bike???
yeah, BMW did it w/ their paras-dakar bike w/ hydrostatic drive, and that was bitchin' although it sapped too much hp from the einge; but i saw something really friggin awesome.
it's called a Christini and it's built in Philly.
They take either a CRF250 or a CRF450 (whatever honda calls their 4 strokes..didn't i get it right?) and make them 2WD.
totally ingenious, although expensive...
it's chain and gear and shaft driven, but if you mail them your honda or KTM (they're working on making a setup for the KTM 450 now...) it's ONLY $6800 to get it converted to AWD. u can see the details on their webiste...Quite ingenious and i would put it close to Motoczysz only for the dirt...but who knows, could a road race bike benefit from 2wd???
sorry w/ my infatuation...I'm a mechanical engineer, but it only adds 15 lb to the bike and SOMEHOW, it only takes away about 1/10hp to drive the system. it incorporates a slipper clutch that's adjustable in the drive shaft to the front end, and a 1 way clutch in the front wheel hub, so it's only powered when the r wheel is slipping, and you can adjust how much torque it gets by adjusting the slipper clutch under the custom gas tank.
if u r interested, their website is www.christini.com and it actually started in the late 1990's when Mr. Christini decided to make regular mountain bikes AWD. IMHO it was totally bitchen, and the 2 team riders placed and got trophies...so it seems to work.
anyways, aside from the texas hotties, it was the coolest thing i saw all weekend!
now i NNOW i'm ramblin, but 1 quick ?...
it seems texas chix are either 1 of 2 things...
fat as hell
or pretty damned hot
what give?
there is no in between!
must be some law in texass or somethin' that ladies can be either 130 lb or less, but if not, they HAVE to be 250 lb+...yikes!
granted, they have nice accents and all, but that was kind of weird i think?
man, i don't even know...it was my 1st time in Texas or Arkansas, or Texarkana, TX (a REAL town!...duh...right on the border)....39 states to go, 11 left to visit thus far.....
i can post a few pix if anyone is interested, i promise not to preface them w/ another novel!
the results aren't online yet, save for the overalls which the factory KTM team got 1st and 2nd in (man...they have a SWEEET RV/toy hauler motor home!):wow:

 

Glad you had such a good time. You should try to make the "Last Man Standing" event for some real spectator action.

I wanted to enter this event but the guys I race with thought it was too far and are scared of Enduros because they think that it's too tough, even though they are no longer timekeepers.

I'll definitely be at the ISDE Qualifier here in CO again (got first in Open C both days last year) and am planning on hitting the Idaho Qualifier as well. Get in touch with me if you're hitting either one of them.

And yes, KTM is the preferred Off Road bike, especially if it's a 2 smoker. :up:

 

jefe,
it's a wonder we're still up this late at night...
but u r in mtn time i assume.
right now glenn has profesized about giving his bike to anyone from CA or anyone that'll be driving out the the 1st CA round of the AMA enduro championship, but it didn't happen. looks like he's going to skip the CA rounds and just do the other 5 remaining that are east of the mississippi. (next one is april 1st in dirt jersey)
mostly cause you can drop 2/8 rounds and it's too far to travel and too much time and all.
don't think i'll be out in CO but i miss that part of the country. SOO much snow now and my leg isn't ready to ski on just yet...900 more miles of excercise bike/mtn bike riding and it will be....
i lived @ the beav end of the season 2000, what a sweeet place to live and ride, but had to move back 2 PA cause i still was paying rent on my house....
people told me when i got there and i only understood it later..."you come for the winter...but you stay for the summers!" not many prettier places to live IMHO.
of course my 2 former co-workers from cameltoe, PA ski school now teach at beaver creek so if i make it out that way to ski, i got a place to stay. (i'll let u know if i end up heading that way in arpril?) that and my co-worker/head tuner from alpine ski shop in chantilly is living out in SLC all winter....and i haven't ridden Alta, etc in WAAY 2 long...at least 300 days on the mtn in mammoth, etc since then, like 8 or more years.
would have done it marti gras 2004, but i ran out of money in frisco CO and had to drive straight from there back 2 work in mammoth...ok, i cheated and caught aspen highlands in a blizzard and one of my best days of the season blue bird @ snowmass the next day
but i don't have any plan to get out west just yet...
glenn is setting up his bike to go ride on a lake in long island this weekend, but i don't think we'll be trekkin that far to be dirty bikin'
and YES KTM 2 smokers RULE!!!
glenn was on his 2004 200 2 smoker
Des was on his 300 2 smoker
and chris fahan was on his 250 2 smoker
it just AMAZED me how it was simply a SEA of orange in TX last weekend.
and another rider told me what makes sense...they cost a little more than jap bikes going in, but they're built right from the start so u end up spending a LOT less to make them tits and 'competitive' in the long run.
ugh......i must resist the urge the twist the right hand as hard as it is, and instead build 1 or 2 go fast cars w/ hard crunchy outsides surrounding the soft, chewy center (ME!).....my old bosss @ colemen told me that analogy, quite true...in fact i camped out on his couch for a week in frisco while riding copper for free....part of the intrawest family including mammoth, whistler, stratton, snowshoe, winter park etc.
(i will turbocharge my new to me 88 jetta gli 16 valve and want to put an infiniti or other 32v V8 into a "rust free" 914 chassis...think 1000 hp will be enough to win Car and Driver's 1 lap in 2 years??? prelim. back of the envelope calculations are about $15k to build it, but it's goijng to be unique and handle like all 914's do...insane (i've owned one for 12 years, but the chassis has too much "factory rust" to rustore again now....selling off the parts remaining to fund GRM $2007 challenge...)
i was a professional "moutain whore" aka mountain employee where they told me what to do, but i had some of the best years of my life doing it teaching kids how 2 ski. shoot, best week of my life honest to God was taking a 6 year old to the top (11,053 ft) and teaching him how to carve dynamic parallel turns. i would have done it for free, it was so fun, but they paid me $18/hr and his parents tipped me a $20 spot the 2nd and 3rd day of the lesson.
fuck it, TUCK IT!
Go BIG or GO HOME!
and yeah, he skied better than my mom...at 6 years old!...of course that's not saying a lot, but it was friggin awesome anyhow
worst part was the day be4 the lesson me and 3 friends built a road gap jump about 50' over a 2 laner and didn't finish making it and the damned forest service tore it down be4 friends could make the jump.
i really wanted to get a pic of me on my race ready hawk in fulll leathers, hand pointing 2 the sky while ryan, a 18 yr old kiwi flew overtop of me on skis.
oh well....
next year.....

 

Last Man Stands where???

i heard about "last man standing" when i was in texassss
where and when is it? and what's the format?
is it a 24hr enduro w/ teammates or something else...
forgot to ask in my former novel....
thankx

 

ok, I'm tired and all...
didn't look @ your location...
but it seems you live in the same neck of the woods i did for bout 2 months from mid march 2000 on.
and i HOPE you've been to Beaver Liquors in avon.
one of the better places to buy alcohol...good selection and their name is just too good to pass up!
of course, i stopped there to get T shirts, etc after having lunch w/ my old co-worker and his students Beau @ the Beav drivin back out 2 mammoth feb 2004.
3600 mile trip that point to point is only 2715 (1st trip, 4 days by myself) but that included riding deals gap on the way as well as packing up the rest of my stuff in blacksburg and whatnot.
you can't get yuengling west of the Mississippi, can you? i never saw it but i brought a case w/ me to my buddy's place in Frisco. of course, we can't get fat tire here in VA supposedly cause those granolas at the brewery think VA doesn't have good enough recycling laws or something?
but hey, at least they started pouring it @ mammoth in the spring of 2004.
def. one of my fav. brews...been 2 long!