Round 2 of the SA Reliability Trial Championship was the 30th Mike Connors 8hr, run by the Keyneton MCC on 24th May. The event is named in memory of Mike Connors, a Keynton club member and winner of the 1976 24hr trial on his first attempt at 18 years old, who tragically died in a motorcycle accident in 1977.
Sign on and the riders briefing was a case of trying to remember the names of people who came up to say hello. I hadn’t ridden an event run by the Keynton club in at least 25 years and there were people every where who remembered me. I had a reputation for doing stupid/dumb things 25 to 30 years ago when I rode trials sidecars. Come too think of it, I must still have the same tendance for doing dumb things, otherwise I would not have been riding a 32 year old XT500 in this event. One of the few people I did remember was Chris Holmes who I used to ride C grade MX against in the late 70’s. Isn’t it strange how you can always remember someone who has run over you when you have fallen off, not once, but from memory 4 times at the one MX meeting, at Clare in 1978 (or 79, it was a long time ago).
Anyway, the event was run over 2 laps of a 153km course broken down into 18 section. Of the 18 sections, 9 were competitive section (timed to the second) ranging from 3 to 7km in length. The terrain ranged from some hilly open paddocks with the odd rocky out crop to negotiate, too tight twisty tracks thru mallee scrub (lot of sand, bull dust and loose rocks), a modified lap of the Sedan off-road buggy track (more bull dust) and dried creek beds (deep “whooped” out sand and more rocks).
There were 130 riders entered in the championship classes (16 expert solo, 6 expert sidecars, 12 clubmen sidecars and 96 clubmen solos) plus 22 riders in the rally class. The rally class is basically a trail ride over one lap of the course following the sweep rides and is used as an introduction for those who want to find out what the sport is like and for those ex-racers who don’t need to “prove” anything and just want to have a good ride.
I drew number 123 which sucked, as it meant that I would ride a fair bit of the final lap in the dark. The first rider away (No. 1) at 10:30am was Shane Kraft riding a 1977 TT500D, as a tribute to Mike Connors. Hanging around for my start time was one of the longest 2 hr I think I have ever spent, and another reason for a low start number being good.
My ride nearly came to a sudden stop on the 2nd transport section about 10km into the event. Having just complete the first competitive section, I was cruising along at 80kph on a bitumen road “recovering”, when I missed the 30kph warning sign for a very tight LH corner. Realising that I was going way to fast for the turn, I jumped on the brake (wishing they were discs) and started kicking the bike back thru the gears as I continued straight on. More thru good luck than from any abundance of riding skill, I managed to come to a halt, upright and pointed in the right direction in the drainage ditch the ran beside the road about a metre or two short of some large gum trees and a barbed wire fence. When I come to the same turn on the 2nd lap there were more than one set of skid marks running off into the ditch, so I wasn’t the only one to miss the sign.
The rest of the first lap went fairly well. As usual I struggled in the competitive section, as the XT just doesn’t handle too well in deep bull dust, whooped out sand and loose rocks. I had learnt from the first round, and I slowed down and took it easy in these sections, resulting in only one silly fall when I lost the front end in the bull dust. Many of the check points became social events as I found more people from the passed who were more sensible than me and were manning the check points, not trying to ride in the event.
The second lap started well, it was dark by time I got to the 2nd comp section and I slowed down accordingly and had only a few stalls and front-end loses in the ever deepening bull dust. Some of the comp sections were cutting up really badly, in one of the later section while crossing a recently ploughed paddock to get from one creek to another, I could feel something trying to push my feed off of the pegs. I took a quick look down and it was the “bow wave” of bull dust being pushed out by my own front wheel.
My night came to a low point during comp section No. 7. The breeze that had kept the dust at bay for most of the day had dropped off and it had become very dusty. Section 7, had been my least favourite section on the first lap, being a fairly fast section thru sparse mallee scrub that was cutting up into deep bull dust with a lot of loose stones in it. As I was riding slowly I waved the guy who started immediately behind me thru, which just compounded my visibility problems, and I was having trouble just finding the course. I had been over shooting a lot of turns even though I was only doing probably 20 to 30kph, but then the dust cleared and I could see that the course straightened out a bit. I foolishly opened it up a bit to maybe 40kph, then promptly lost the front end and went down, making a three point landing on my left shoulder, thigh, and the left side of my head. As I lay in the dust for what seemed like eternity (but was probably only a few minute), trying to get my foot from under the bike, I curse god numerous time for the bull dust and the F***ING ROCKS. I eventually got myself and the bike upright and slowly rode to the end of the section.
Riding the next transport section to the fuel stop all I could think of was pulling out after I had refuelled and riding back to the main control, however, the brother of Mike Connors had come up to me before the start and was so please to that I was riding a 1976 500 Yamaha, which was the same as what Mike had raced. It was one of those cases where I didn’t want to let Mike’s brother down by not finishing, but I was frustrated with having fallen off and in a degree of pain. While refuelling, some of my local club members who were waiting for me to come in so they could take my jerry can back to the start convinced me to carry on.
For the last ½ of the lap, 71km, including 5 competitive stages, I hardly ever got up onto the pugs and just stayed seated riding thru the comp sections in 1st and 2nd gears. I rode into control 17, the start of the final comp section, just as Chris Holmes, the last rider (No. 131), started the section and the sweep riders pulled in right behind me. As I rode the section a smile came back to my face as I realised that there was only an 18km transport stage back to the finish.
When I rode into the finish, I was met by Mike’s brother and from the reception I got you would have thought that I had one the event. There were people taking picture, and coming up to congratulate me. Even after I had parked the bike and change out of my riding kit, people came up to congratulate me, generally starting with “you’re the guy who was riding ‘THAT BIKE”.
In the light of day the next morning, the bike pulled up better than me, with just a broken rear blinker lens, two broken welds on the rear carrier and a crushed/flattened exhaust pipe (again). Where as I could hardly walk and still had a headache. I will also have to buy a new helmet as the fall in comp section 7, took a few descent chips out of the shell and it will no longer pass inspection. Bit of a bugger that, as it was only a month old, but it did its job.
Anyway, final results. I ended up 100th overall (out of 104 finishers), and 3rd in Class M for bike over 20years old. Shane Kraft won class M, and was 36th overall, which is not bad for someone riding a 1977 TT500D. As I am the only rider to have finished in the 2 rounds so far I am still leading the Class M title.
Round 3 is the Robertstown 2 day next weekend (June 7 and
. I will be giving this round a miss to allow the body to recover so I will be fit for the 24hr in July.
CJ
P.S. Have I mentioned that I hate bulldust and F***ING ROCKS!
