- This stuff was difficult to walk in. Quads just pushed their front wheels along without them rotating.
At about 10pm last night while I was trying to ignore the loud campers to our west a shower blew through and totally saturated the parking lot. Just after that happened several redneck fired up their pickups and jeeps and whatnot and drove in uncontrollable circles in the middle of the huge parking expanse here. The once farm field turned into an enormous quagmire of muddy mess. And the roaring engines and cheering drunks kept me awake for hours.
Good ole boys.
Hard to tell from the photo but that's a slightly downward slope that would eventually take you to where we parked. The mud was relentless.
Actually, to be fair, I did venture out to see the action for a few minutes. It was dark enough that my camera wouldn’t capture a decent shot but I still got a feel for things. Chaos. Redneck chaos.
His cab was full of 6 packs he'd taken on as payment.
Then today it was cold from the start and the daylight showed us just how much damage all the hooliganism had done. Campers and haulers and trucks on the perimeter of the muddy playground were splattered with globs of mud. It was very difficult to walk from our campsite to the toilets with the rutted and squishy mud. There was no possible way – absolutely no way – we could have driven the van out at that time.
Camo quad, Carhartt pants, camo jacket and a pink boa. Dig it.
Joe and Joe’s wife Liz and I watched the start of the quad races. David Knight competed in the pro race on KTM450 whatever it’s called so we were keen to see him do well. He had a crummy start and ended up in the 20s somewhere. I bet he had fun but still he’s probably not exceedingly happy with finishing so far back.
The Knighter setting the sag on his quad. The Ohlins tech helping him is just out of the picture.
I decided I’d walk a bunch of the course at this GNCC round. I donned my mud boots and did about 6 of the 9+ mile loop. It was fun and gave me some idea of what’s coming tomorrow. The trail was much drier than the parking lot. I’ve had good results at the mud races this year so I was looking forward to some mud but the mud is so hard on the bike it will be nice to have it a little drier.
Same mental approach for tomorrow. Ride my own race, enjoy the trail and challenges, keep my head up, eat, drink and above all stay safe.
The crowd at the bottom of Ironman hill during the pro quad race.
Joe, Liz and I are seated in front of what’s left of a raging campfire watching quad racer’s trucks and trailers get towed out of the parking lot by the local farmer’s tractors. The fire feels good. We are in for a cold one again tonight. Looking forward to the race tomorrow.
