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Sunday
morning came cool & clear. I arrived at sunup &
pulled into a quiet camping area that showed little signs
of the prior evenings rain. After I donned my track
official's garb, I hopped aboard my four wheeler, &
made my customary parade lap of the pits. Off I went,
waving, shaking hands, benchracin’ & tellin’ lies
as I am often compelled to do.
Another of my early morning duties, is to make sure
there weren't any half dressed girls stumbling about in
search of the bathrooms.
I then made my way up to a high spot on the
mountain, that one of the promoters had shown me the night
before, & looked out over a small valley.
There was fog
covering most of it, but there was the occasional hilltop
poking through kinda like a humpback whale swimmin' on a
calm ocean...if ya get my meaning.
It was absolutely beautiful. It was quiet.
Peaceful. The birds were making that noise that they make,
and the sun was turning the fog down in the valley, a nice
KTM orange. Very nice...in a couple of hours however,
it would be chaos.
Back
in the pits now, the hustle & bustle of race morning
was all about. Preacher Jim was giving his service to the
faithful, & those not so inclined were making as much
racket as possible.
One guy, a
senior amateur ( +40 ), flagged me down, & said that
his boy, a mini rider, had been out on the track for an
inordinate length of time, & asked if we customarily
swept the track before the race.
He seemed a little worried, & knowing that I
would be worried in the same situation, I took it upon
myself to find the kid before the race started, &
became a safety issue. I used the radio, with no luck, no
one had seen him. I stopped riders coming in from morning
practice & still nobody had any info for me. I found
the dad again, got the kid’s proper description, bike
type, number, & so on, & took off down the trail
on the four wheeler to rescue this lost or downed racer.
Ya
know, I just use the four wheeler as a utility vehicle,
and don't consider myself to be a real ATV pilot, but
knowing ya gotta cover 10 miles of track in less that 30
minutes tends to motivate you.
Note: Four
wheelers don't have the suspension that two wheelers have.
After 20 minutes I was both exhausted, and unsuccessful in
my endeavor to find the kiddo. As I stopped at the ladies
/ minis alternate cutoff ( which the promoter wisely put
in to avoid much wailing & gnashing of teeth from said
ladies / mini riders ) I was told that someone had seen a
kid stuck at the bottom of a hill “in there”...he
pointed down into the darker, steeper section of the track
reserved for the big bikes.
"Naw"
I said, "He wouldn't be down in the big bike
section...would he?"
He was.
When I got down
in there, a couple of folks had already come to his aid,
& he was on his way out, safe & sound. So. Nothing
for more to do but go find his dad, & make sure he
knew the boy was OK.
Which I did.
I guess the first call for the paramedics came
about one second after the last of the amateurs got
underway. Not unusual, you know how things are when
everyone's nervous, & all bunched up at the start of
an event. I went & picked up Cindy, the club
historian, & PR Girl Extraordinaire, & off we went
to get some photos.
We got over to
one of the more challenging hills, one with a small rock
ledge or two on the way up, & muscled past the crowds
of crash-mongers, & thrill-seekers ( those who cross
the track during a race )
to get some pictures...of …crashes ( just kidding
).
I've decided
that while the expert program may have faster riders, the
amateurs are certainly very...uh, flamboyant in their
execution of hill climbing skills!
Very flamboyant indeed!
After
getting our fill of both pictures and roost, off we went
to another part of the track, the checkpoint at mile 5.5
On
the way over I started to notice that the radio was going
almost nonstop.
"Paramedics? ...we've got a rider down at the bottom of the big hill"
"we're on
our way" would come the reply. Those EMT guys really
are great about that.
"Paramedics
? ...rider
down at mile 2.5"
"we're
coming"
"Paramedics
? ...rider down..."
"Paramedics?
...we got a guy hurt..."
"Paramedics ?"
" Paramedics ? "
Over
& over came the call. Now, I know this is a rough
sport. People get hurt. I've gotten hurt. Cindy's broken
her arm in a race last year. Everyone I know has a broken
collarbone. It's almost a normal thing. Almost.
I started to
feel kinda bad about all this ...carnage. After all,
I did the track inspection a few weeks prior to the
event, & I had told everybody how cool the track was.
How neat the dirt was. How nice the facility was. That
they should all make this race no matter what.
"This is
all my fault " I told Cindy. " They're gonna
kill me" I said. Cindy the diplomat, assured me that it was true that the
track was a bit more challenging than what we're used to,
but that she, as a lady amateur rider, found the track
lots of fun. OK then. I felt a little better. I hate to
let the club members down in any way.
At this moment,
as we were driving the four wheeler down an access road, a
racer came sliding to a stop along side of us. He wasn't
happy.
"I
want my money back" he shouted at me.
"What?"
" What's wrong" I asked...at this point wishing
that I hadn't put on the ‘track official’ garb this
morning.
"I was
stuck on that hill for thirty minutes, “ he made a
thumbing gesture over his shoulder.
“And you weren't there to help me out" he
screamed.
"I want my
money back" he repeated, once again, as if I was
supposed to reach into my O'Neal riding pants & pull
out dollars equivalent to his weekend's expenses.
I explained to
the obviously frustrated gentleman, that I personally
didn't make the track, nor could I give him a refund. He
insisted that I was a track official, and should've
rerouted the track, or been there to help
him
up, or something. I
felt an inch tall. Maybe
I should've. I was a track official after all. But that kinda thing is
usually left up to the higher ranking guys, not me. I
suggested that he see the gate people if he felt like he
didn't get his money's worth.
He stormed off. Cindy & I rode off to the
checkpoint in silence.
The radio kept echoing the call for paramedics. I
felt like shit.
As we rode out
to the checkpoint, I decided I couldn't save every rider
on the track, but I'd spend the rest of the day trying to
save the ones I could. Even if I had to miss my own
race…no big deal, I’ve done it before.
When
we arrived at the check point there were paramedics there,
looking for mile marker 6.5, saying that there was a
"rider down" in that area.
I knew where I was, & I knew where the 7 &
8 mile markers were, but I couldn't point him in the
direction of the downed rider. This wasn't getting any
better for the Patman. I gave him my radio, so he could
ask for assistance, he seemed to get some, & off he
went. Cindy & I followed on the four wheeler.
We arrived at
the top of a very steep hill where the riders were coming
up under full power to keep the momentum up.
We were at about mile seven. We figured we'd walk
down, avoiding the racers as best we could, & head
backward toward the checkpoint, and would surely find this
injured rider that they were looking for.
As we went down we met a fellow that was part of a
Jeep club, who was obviously exhausted, he asked,
"Are you guys paramedics?"
We
told him that we were just trying to help, and he informed
us that the guy was quite a ways down in there, and that
it was quite a hike. About that moment, in between the
upcoming racers, walked up the hill, two paramedics, that
had seen the guy, but apparently, could do nothing further
for him. He apparently had an injured back, & couldn't
be moved. I
looked at Cindy, & said astoundedly, "they just
left him?" We
were told that there were still two more EMTs down there
with him.
Cindy & I
stood on the side of the steep hill, dodging oncoming
racers, & trying to figure a plan. We couldn't get a
vehicle to him, not down this hill anyway. And there was
no way to reroute the race traffic anyway, to try to drive
the "Jeep club" guy's 4X4 down.
I ( we ) decided
to walk until we got to him, determine where we were, call
for help, and carry him out by
hand
if necessary. And
so we walked, stumbled, & slid down the hill along the
trail, & into the valley below, until we finally saw a
bunch of bikes laying about. But no people. They were off
the trail, in the thick brush a few feet away. Several
riders had stopped, in the middle of a high speed, deep,
sandy, whoop section, & were helping the EMTs lift a
rather burly guy out of the weeds. From the wailing he was
doing, I could tell he was injured pretty badly, &
wasn't too pleased about the jostling he was getting as
the guys tried to lift him out of there.
They got him out on the trail, but as it was a high
speed section, I figured I could best use the orange shirt
I was wearing to direct traffic around this mess.
I gave my radio to one of the medics, & could
hear someone asking how to direct the wife of the fallen
rider to him. I told him to get on the radio, & send
them to the check point, & follow the track 'till they
reached us. I suggested, that we carry him down the trail
toward the checkpoint, to try to meet them.
So
the riders that had stopped, Cindy, & the two
paramedics, started moving him down the racetrack toward
the checkpoint. There was absolutely no way we could get
him up the hill that Cindy & I had just come down,
even though it was the closest route to safety.
I ran ahead of
the group of carriers, physically blocking the trail,
& stopping each rider completely, & warning him of
the group following me. As it was a high speed section,
some of the riders couldn't stop in time & hit me, not
'cause the were tryin' to of course, it was just that the
sand was so deep & the section so fast, that they
couldn’t stop. Plus, most of them probably didn’t
figure on anybody out that far bringing everybody to a
complete stop. I figured that if I didn't actually block
the trail & force them to stop though, that there
would be more injuries.
We walked for
quite a ways before I finally saw Bubba Anders, another
track official, coming down the hill on
his
big fourwheeler. I stopped at that point to block traffic
while they went in to get the guy, John Essinger, our
club's Vice President, came up, and so did the guy's wife
all on four wheelers. In a short while they came out of
the valley & up the hill toward the checkpoint,
probably a mile from where the guy had fallen. John was
sounding the siren on his fourwheeler to warn the traffic
that had passed me.
The
trail was pretty narrow there, & I had to stop the
racing completely there while they came out at about two
miles an hour. It was rough going for the injured rider,
who was now on a stretcher on the back of Bubba's Honda
Foreman. They made it up to the waiting ambulance, but not
before we all had to push from the back, & weight the
front of Bubba's Foreman, to get up the last hill. I got a
picture of them loading him in the ambulance. I don't know
why., but I was pleased to see that we had finally gotten
him out.
We made it back to our fourwheeler, & once
again blocked the race traffic while the ambulance crossed
the track on the way out.
Then it was back to the pits just in time for Cindy
to dress & head to the start line for the noon event.
I went off to cut some fresh trail around another mud
hole. That's
when I saw the guy from the restaurant last night. He had
apparently been stuck in that same mudhole for some
time. When I asked how he was doin', he said "Suckey"
As I felt kinda "sucky" myself, I said
"Well good!" ( I didn't wanna be the ONLY one
feelin' Suckey! ).
Well, we cut
trail for a while, clipping, & hacking, & digging,
until we made a way around the offending wet spot in the
trail. Of course we had to delay the noon race for a few
minutes while we completed our work.
They started the
ladies race, & I went to get gas in the fourwheeler,
& then to the opposite side of the track to fix
another mudhole. And to make repairs to the ledge hill,
that they called Saturday Night Live.
By the time I got back to the pits, the ladies race
was over, Cindy was back looking fresh as ever, saying
that she had ...fun.
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