Merry-land and the 12 Hour

Wow... not even two weeks and I already have so much to catch up on! It’s definitely been a busy month. The day after my last blog I was on a plane to Washington D.C. where I’d be staying for a week (Waldorf, Maryland actually). There was an AMA Pro Motocross National at Budds Creek that I was covering on Saturday, and the following Tuesday/Wednesday there was going to be a new bike intro at the same track. So rather than fly home Sunday and come right back on Tuesday, I just stayed for the week.

(left) Self portrait at Chesapeake Beach, Maryland.

After the two weeks before that I thought it would be nice to have some down time and be able to sit in my hotel room and relax a bit – which I did for about two hours on Sunday morning before I was itching to go do something. No bikes, no friends in Maryland and I was climbing the walls with boredom. By Monday afternoon I was going stir crazy because I had to stay in the room and get my story done, and then be at the computer all day because that’s the day we go to print.
Finally on Monday afternoon I got to get out for a bit. I headed over to Chesapeake Bay to check out some of the beaches. Here’s a tip – what they call a “beach” is basically a dumpster full of sand emptied out onto some boulders. And get this – they charge you to step off of the boardwalk and onto the sand. There are people standing there like at a subway ticket booth making sure you paid your $8 to be on the “beach.” Pfft!

(right) The boardwalk is free, but you gotta pay to walk on the sand here!

The bay was beautiful, though. It was blazing hot and the humidity was off the charts, but other than that, it was nice. There are crabs everywhere and lots of geese on the beach. Quite a change of pace! I sat down at one of the boardwalk restaurants for a bowl of crab chowder and a glass of wine. That was also nice... but it would have been a LOT nicer with some company!

(right) Canadian geese kickin' it on the Chesapeake Bay shore.

That’s the weird thing about all this travel. Yeah, it’s cool and all, but it feels kinda empty when there’s no one there to share it with. It’s like someone says, “Here you go. You can have the coolest house you ever dreamed of, but you can’t ever have people over.” So is your house still as cool?
Anyhoo, my solitary confinement ended on Tuesday afternoon when the editors and Kawasaki peeps showed up for the KX250F intro. At last! Social stimulation! Tuesday night we all hopped on a shuttle bus and went across town to dinner at a Persian... Mediterranean type place. Steak and shrimp, tandoori and baklava! Mmmm...
Wednesday was our intro at Budds Creek and wow was it a brutal day. Record heat in the area, high humidity and NO BREEZE whatsoever. It felt like you had to cut the air with a knife to even walk through it, and we were going to be riding motocross in this!
I usually don’t have a problem with heat at all. Triple digits – no problem. But I’ve never been in humidity like that. Just a few laps in and I was feeling light headed and nauseous. After I pulled in for a break it got worse. I was dumping ice water on my head and even on my feet, but I couldn’t cool off! My heart was still racing and my vision was starting to tunnel... not good. After a few hours of rest, and letting the temperatures drop a bit, I tried riding again. (I know that might sound crazy, but that’s the thing with this job. You can’t exactly just sit back and say, “It’s too hot to ride,” after Kawasaki has put on this big event and flown you across the country for the North American launch of their new flagship motocross bike. You gotta tough it out. Even after 30 hours of traveling and no sleep, you gotta freshen up, clip on a smile and go to the welcome dinner. Or if you’re sick, hung over, sleep deprived and it’s snowing outside, you have to finish your motos for the shootout. A thousand people would kill for my job, so there’s no complaining and no cop-outs! This job is a privilege and a responsibility and I never forget that.)
I got in a few more laps before I started feeling sick again. I tried my best – we all did – but the weather just wasn’t cooperating. At least we got some good photos done that morning so it wasn’t a total wash.
We had another great dinner that night. This time it was barbecue. It’s weird but Maryland feels more like a Southern state than some actual Southern states do. The barbecue dinner was great, but at that point I think I would have settled for an IV and a salt lick.
Thursday we headed home. I spent most of the day Thursday and Friday still feeling sick and dehydrated. I was starting to worry because Saturday night we had the Glen Helen 12 Hour endurance race which, as you can imagine, is a really demanding race. You can’t go into that feeling under the weather. That’s what happened last year when I had the flu, but still tried to tough it out because I didn’t want to let the rest of the team down. I ended up in the hospital the next day with bronchitis.

(left) Saturday night - time for some night racin'!

Fortunately I woke up Saturday feeling like a million bucks, and we were off to the races! My friend Brandon, our photographer Mark Kariya (I always call him Kato) and one of his friends who I just met (Adam) were the four riders on our team. We were riding the Beta 400 RR (the same bike we rode and shot up in Arroyo Grande a few weeks ago). The 12 Hour race was at night this year – 5 P.M. to 5 A.M. – so we had the bike and our helmets rigged up with HID lights.
The course was brutal – really rough and pretty technical with some treacherous downhill sections. It was pretty punishing... just how I like it! At the end of an endurance race, or a Baja ride or an enduro, you should feel like you were just dragged behind a truck. That’s my philosophy! So for sure, I left this event happy.
Things got interesting at about 2 A.M. when a water main broke and sent a big fast-moving river down the middle of the track. That was rather surprising to come up on in the middle of the night. Each lap the river was getting longer and stretching further down the course so it certainly kept us on our toes – and struggling to dry off by the fire between rides.
I felt I rode well. I had quite a few close calls where I thought for sure I was going down – one of which was a nose-wheelie after an awkward landing from a step-down. I hit some big rocks and square edged bumps that kicked me totally sideways but I always managed to keep moving forward with the rubber side down. We had no busted grips or bent levers in the end. But in typical “Jean” style, I did actually hit the ground once – I tripped and fell walking to the bathroom.

(left) Here I am at 4:30 A.M. heading out on my last ride.

We finished the race 12 hours and 250 miles later. It was my rotation by the end of the night so I got to be on the bike as twilight broke, and I got to take the checkered flag. It’s always a sweet feeling to come through the scoring chute with the flag waving and your teammates high-fiving you. And I love LOVE riding the ridges of Glen Helen as the sun comes up. It’s such an incredible feeling when the light finally breaks, and you have that feeling of relief and accomplishment that you made it through the night. The rest is always downhill after that. Surviving the night without crashes or breakdowns... or emotional meltdowns... is always the toughest part of the endurance races.

(right) This pedestrian bridge was part of the course. Here I am coming down the stairs just before dawn.

Night riding is really a trip. Even though you’re on the same trails you were on in the daylight, it’s a totally different experience. It’s like one minute you’re feeling so peaceful and the next you’re remind yourself not to panic. It’s really strange being out in the wilderness alone in the dark. The headlights cast really strange shadows as you go by, and sometimes it looks as though the bushes are moving. Every now and then you might see glowing eyes of some curious critter (hopefully they don’t jump out in front of you). And there are almost always photographers camped out on the course. You don’t know they’re there until you’re blinded by a flash as you come through a corner!
I almost forgot how much I love night riding. The 12 Hour was a lot of fun and we were all stoked to get a finish. We didn’t place very high, but we had fun, didn’t have any breakdowns or injuries, and we all left the next morning still speaking to each other. So I’d have to say that was more successful than plenty of the other endurance races I’ve done!

(right) 5:15 A.M. - our team celebrating our finish at the Glen Helen 12 Hour Endurance Race.

This week it’s back to the grind. I’m actually glad to have a quiet week in the office with no grandiose plans for a while. It’ll be good to get caught up on some stories and let my body get some rest. I’m sun burned, I have sore muscles from head to toe, blisters on my hands, poison oak on my arm, bruises on my thigh, a cut still healing on my knee and I’m in desperate need of a pedicure. And then there’s that dirty Beta still sitting in my garage... ugh.
Such a tough life! ;)