40th Annual Sierra Old Timers International Moto Cross

This was the 40^th annual event and was held at the Prairie City OHV Park and the home of the Iconic Hangtown Moto Cross National track.

The weather couldn’t have been much better for us riders who live in California and Nevada. Some of the riders from up north thought it was a bit warm. The previous weekend was over a hundred so all in all the weather was just about perfect. The track couldn’t have been much better either. (The first race on Sunday was a little over watered and resulted in some riders not being able to make it up big Moe) The track was home to a Loretta Lynn qualifier the week before and they had worked lots of rice hulls and some sand into the track which kept moisture in the track and kept the usual deep ruts from forming in the corners. In fact, a lot of the corners never developed any real ruts at all.

As is becoming the norm the 50 novice and intermediate classes were the largest. Full gates for each class, if they continue to grow we might actually need to have two gates for each class. Growing classes in those age groups bodes well for the future of our sport.

We had enough ladies sign up to have their own gate drop. We as a club are going to encourage more women not only come to our race but join us at our ride days.

An interesting side note I know of three riders this year who lined up behind gate number two next to the dog house on the right hand side that got stuck behind the gate because it didn’t drop as fast as the others. That happened last year as well I know because I was one of them 

I don’t think the ambulance moved all weekend. I know there were a number of riders who went down and the EMT’s were on the track looking after them. But I think they all were able to walk or ride, some in the cart, off the track. I had one little tip over myself, some of you might remember Artie Johnson from Laugh-in when he would be on his little three wheel bicycle and just fall over? My little tip over reminded me of that, came into a corner the bike stalled my momentum stopped my feet were on the pegs and I just tipped over. I don’t remember if Artie was wearing his German helmet or not when he was on the bike, or if that was only when he was peeking out from the little palm bush.

Some of you still might remember the Fish award an idea that came from the fertile mind of Eric McKenna (#33). This is one those Billy Bob Bass things that hangs on a wall and wiggles when turned on. Eric thought it would be good to have an award that would be given to the rider who pulled off the dumbest of the dumb shit moves of the weekend. It travels around with the recipient from one race to another until it is deemed by an impromptu committee meeting during the weekend that someone has proven themselves worthy of the award. A couple of years ago Mark Kestner who was at the time the proud keeper of the fish brought it to our race at Prairie City hoping someone would take it off his hands. And the gods smiled down on Mark that weekend a rider named Mike Harper a very fast 50 Master who was the second gate drop behind the 40 Expert/Masters, Mike got so excited he left with the first group thus earning him the award.

Well Mike came out on Saturday to race with us at this year’s event and brought the Billy Bob with him telling me we needed to give it to someone else this weekend. Well we did and guess who that was? Mike of course. When all the transponders were turned back in he was one of two who forgot. So I called him Sunday and he’s on his boat on Lake Folsom and when I tell him what he did, he says I guess I get to keep the Billy Bob huh.  

We used transponders this year after we had some scoring issues last year and we didn’t want a repeat. There was some grumbling at first, but when the riders found the results were posted minutes after their race and they could also see their lap times I think that grumbling turned into a lot of oh yea’s.

My perspective of this year’s race is a little different than last year. Last year I just helped where ever I could with setup and tear down. This year I’m the treasurer of the club and was very involved in it. There are four new officers in the club this year and we all wanted to put on the very best event we could.

We couldn’t have had the event we had without the Armstrong’s (REP Racing, they operate Riverfront, Est. and Prairie City moto cross facilities) and they really do know what they are doing. And the Armstrong’s were very complementary of us racers and spectators. We were very observant of the yellow flags for downed riders and were the cleanest neatest group they had ever had at any of their events period. Which proves my point that we older seasoned citizens know how to conduct ourselves. I believe we treated everyone fairly. We certainly tried and when you do that people respond in kind. 

One of the things we wanted to do this year was to bring back some of the comradery we all feel when we can sit down in one area after a day of competition and break bread with each other. We did that and had our raffle at the same time. I think I can say that it turned out great. I’m sure most of you have done white elephant gifts where you draw numbers and the higher your number you get the better your chances of getting something actually worth keeping. I know the rules of the game vary but swapping or stealing gifts is part it. We didn’t have any stealing going on but we did have some raffle prize swapping, it was a lot of fun.

We were all very tired and sore after the event had ended and everything was torn down and put away. We were sitting in the office waiting to put the final touches on the financial end with the Armstrong’s and looked at each other and said this wasn’t so bad was it, especially with all the help we had and at that moment we basically committed to do it again next year.

We’ve already started a list of things we might want to change, add or subtract to improve next year’s event.

To all our sponsors and to all of those who came out, thank you very much.

Doug 21J