PREZ SAYS

My View

Here it is getting close to the holidays with much anticipation of also getting into the second half of our season. Our first five hare scramble events have been something to talk about.

Record numbers of entries and lots of new faces coming through the gate is a welcome site as our sport is starting to strengthen and grow. So many new members and a lot of old members coming back have brought the starting grid to full capacity.

Of course this also provides the opportunity to bench race about the old days of when it was just a one day event and it took at least a dozen people to manually score each race. We also had three events on Sunday, 10:00, 12:00 and 2:00, which also meant that everything was hand written from sign up to the results. Scores were eventually posted and we actually had a trophy presentation for each class, of course there were only maybe a dozen or so classes total.

Locations like River Ranch, Pratt Whitney, Arcadia KOA campground were places that left memories like, starting out in about a foot of water and running through mud waist deep where line selection was key. Those were days that everything had to go right and you had to have some luck if you wanted a trophy.

Our enduro series was one tough event even to finish let along trophy. Waist deep water, mud holes and trail so tight that if you didn’t have you bars cut down to at least 28”or 26”, you were in for a tough day as single track trail meant you had to have a hinge in the middle of your bike to bend around the trees. CRC was the normal can of moisture repellent that saved a lot of us that tried to cross the rivers and ponds as the points and condensers didn’t like water. I could go on and on about how it used to be when we rode DT1’s, TM’s, SL 175’s, Bighorns and some off brands like Ossas, Bultacos and these new things called KTM’s. Fast forward to today with the E-button and fuel injection and the mud and water doesn’t bother most of us, except for me. We have come such a long way from the days of fouled plugs and watering out that it’s almost unbelievable that we are building bridges and making highways through the woods that if we can’t run three abreast, it’s too tight!

Those days of 40 and 50 years ago bring back some good memories, but I wouldn’t want to go back to them. Appreciate what we have today and take care of what we have and we will be able to enjoy many more years of making memories.

Thanks for listening,

Randy Faul

FTR President

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