How it all started

This weekend I will participate in my fourth desert race for this year, my fifth ever. I'm still surprised at times how into it I am now considering where I was just two years ago with my life...though at the same time I'm quite depressed at the idea of where I might be right now with my racing had I started two years ago. Or where I'd be right now if I had started when I first wanted to race...

Oh well! Coulda, shoulda, woulda...anyways, so for a little history on my riding and how I got into racing, read on!

I first started riding motorcycles at five years old. Details are a little sketchy with my memory these days, but prior to that age I would sit on the front of my dad's Honda XR500 when the family would go on riding trips. Whether or not I wanted to ride by myself or was gently persuaded to do so I don't remember...but I can remember the first time I did ride on my own. We had a little Suzuki JR50 and we took a trip out to a place called Manning - an old school motocross track that had long been abandoned in an area called 5 Mile Pass southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah and there I learned how to ride.

I was the youngest of four boys in the family (there are three girls in the family too, but two of them are younger than me and the older one wasn't around much when I was growing up) and by quite a bit too; the next oldest brother is six years older than me. So when I was five years old he was eleven and to me he was amazing on a motorcycle. I would watch my brothers fly around that old track and want nothing more than to ride as well as they did.

My dad encouraged us all at riding since it was a favorite hobby of his. He would take us out around two or three times a year at least, and he bought new bikes now and again too which was always nice. I rode that little JR50 until I was eight years old and had a blast on it. Around that time he bought a new bike; a Suzuki DS80. Man what a hot bike! I thought I was so cool on that thing and on the first trip we took with it (at least the first I remember) I showed everyone just how cool I was.

We went to Moab, Utah and were riding through a pretty windy wash. I can't remember the exact area, but I do seem to remember it was nearby another old school abandoned motocross track there as well. Being on the small bike I was behind the main group, but everyone was nice and wasn't going so fast I couldn't keep up. I rounded a corner and was surprised to see everyone stopped. Very slowly and one by one everyone moved forward, carefully going around a big rock in the middle of the wash. Since everyone was there I saw the perfect opportunity to show everyone how awesome I was, and how stylin' I was on the new bike. The rock in the middle seemed to have the perfect trajectory to jump off of, and I couldn't really see the other side but it had to be just sand or something - after that's all the wash was!

As everyone cleared out and moved forward they all stopped to make sure I got through okay. With all eyes on me I put it in gear and gunned it heading straight for the rock. My moment of glory was approaching! I turned it on and at full throttle hit the rock and pulled back on the handle bars to jump and waited for that great rush of wind and feeling of awesomeness to come. It never came...instead of pulling my front tire up and launching off the rock, the bike plummeted straight down into what I hadn't been able to see before which was the reason everyone was carefully going around the rock: a big 2-3 feet deep water hole. Before I knew what was going on my head was under water and the new DS80's rear tire sticking up in the air spinning mud at everyone.

It's a moment that will surely live on in family history for anyone that was there (though there have been more memorable moments since then...not always involving me but usually they did). There is a cause for this funny mishap that seems to be a common theme in incidents where I either crash or nearly crash. You might be able to guess it - it has to do with the fact that everyone was there and watching...the spotlight was on me...it was my moment of glory.

Yeah.

For whatever reason I have a hard time keeping my cool when I'm being watched. The first race of this year nearly had a pretty major wreck for me due to this same issue. Luckily it didn't, and truly, it was luck that saved me in that case. But I'll report on that when I get to that race report which will hopefully be soon. But for whatever reason when I see people I get all excited and turn it up a notch. Need to work on that. The good news for anyone else out there though is that if they're at a race watching me and they see me coming around the corner they can bet they'll get some entertainment in some form...whether it's me actually pulling off something cool or getting in a near crash or actually crashing super hard. It should be fun to watch anyways.

After a few years on the DS80 my dad got a Honda XR100. I rode this in a lot of places including my first several Baja trips. I moved from this to an old Honda XR200 we had had for along time, and from there I borrowed my older brother Matt's Yamaha TT350. I used a Honda XR400 after that, and one trip was able to ride a Honda XR650, which was the first "hot bike," as my dad calls them, I ever rode...more on that later. I was improving from year to year and with the bigger bikes was able to keep up with my brothers better and better.

The year the competitive spirit really hit me though was 1994. I was fourteen years old that year and we took a trip to Baja. This was different than anything I had been on - we weren't taking a motor home or a trailer for base camp like we had in the past...just the guys, their motorcycles, and backpacks with supplies. Perhaps after reading this my dad will volunteer the map or route and I can add it to this post, but I can't remember where we went at all. I was on the XR200 for this trip and it was the first time I really felt like I could keep up. But being able to keep up is what ignited the competitiveness in me - it was there all along, just hadn't been awoken yet in terms of riding.

It happened sometime during the middle of the trip, my brother Paul and I were riding through a wash that was a lot of fun and had excessively deep sand. We were riding side by side through it and it became quite challenging to remain like that and still go fast...but the rush of doing so only made me want to go faster. Since he was a much faster rider it was not a problem for him to keep my pace, so I pretty much set the speed and he just stayed next to me. It was such a rush - I was pushing it as hard as I could and staying on my side of the trail as he was right next me. We probably weren't actually going that fast through there when I look back and think about it, but at the time it sure felt like we were. The sand was deep and you had to have the throttle pinned all the way or you'd lose all momentum.

Riding side by side like this and going as fast as I was able is what gave me the rush of competition. I wasn't really trying to beat Paul at the time - just trying to stay with him since he could go much faster than I. But I was at my limit of my skill and ability and that limit was awesome. This was the first time I had felt that I was good at riding and that's when the idea of desert racing first came to my mind.

Naturally for me having ridden so much in Baja the Baja SCORE races were what I associated with desert racing. I didn't know what else was out there at the time but assumed that all desert racing would be like riding in Baja. Over the years we've been on several of the trails used in the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 races so I figured I knew what to expect. The dream to race in one of those races was born at this time and has remained ever since.

As the years progressed there were lots more trips and my riding ability increased. To be honest I thought I was pretty hot stuff...my ignorance of the desert racing world would serve to humble me in the future. However it was a good thing too, thinking that I was hot stuff - if I hadn't I probably wouldn't have given racing a try for fear of not being competitive enough or something. Though that sort of fear isn't a trait that's very common in my family so...

The last piece of the puzzle to how it all got started was only six years ago in 2002 with another Baja trip. I hadn't been to Baja since 1996 and I was excited at the idea of going again. I was newly married and in no way could afford to go, but luckily my dad wanted me to go bad enough he helped me get there and enjoy the trip. This trip introduced a whole new kind of bike to me - a really fast bike with seemingly limitless power: Honda's XR650R. Every bike I had ridden in the past had some sort of weakness I was always dealing with, whether it wasn't enough top speed or not enough hit or "oomph" in the low gears. The XR650 though...it had it all. There was always more speed to be had if I had the nerve to use it, and there was always more than enough power in the low gears and mid gears. What's great about it too is it didn't feel clunky like a lot of the other bikes I had ridden (of course, those bikes hadn't felt clunky at the time...they only did after I rode this one). It was large and heavy but balanced so well that it felt light weight and easy to handle. I felt invincible on this bike.

My competitive spirit coupled with a desire to show off and prove how good I was, added to the new found world of really fast motorcycles, conspired together to ensure that racing was in my future. Sadly at that time in my life being a new husband, soon to be a new father, and pretty much no money to my name it wouldn't occur until later. I've been extremely fortunate in my life though and the opportunity to race has presented itself - and it's much different than I thought it would be.

Next post will be a report of the first race I went to and got my first taste of what it would be like. I've got some pictures from that event so it shouldn't be just a read but have nice pretty visual aides to help you readers along. Also more good news - my dad is going to get me a bunch of his old slides and pictures for me to scan, so I'll be editing some of these older posts in the future to add pictures from these past events I referenced.