| Event Review - Delaware 2002 |
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39th Annual
Delaware State National Enduro
October 27, 2002
Delaware City, DE
So you think you are tough, do ya?
OOOh, you are fast, TOO, eh?
So, you beat the pants off
the guys in the A-125 class at the Motocross last weekend, overalled the A-class at the
Hagerstown Hare Scramble and this fat old enduro rider Chuck Marler talked you into riding
an enduro and you, Mr tough guy, signed up for the A class at your first event thinking you
were gonna breeze to an overall and strut around the District 7 banquet?
What he forgot to
tell you, as he was giggling bubbles into his beer, is that this particular enduro is the
Delaware National Enduro, smartypants.
Yeah, yeah, yeah... I've heard all the stories about
Delaware mud before...so spare me.
As a matter of fact, I think I'll spare you all the rest of this humorous diatribe before I
irritate a hare scrambles racer and he actually DOES come out and embarass us enduro riders.
Instead I'll tell you about the Delaware National Enduro.
The Delaware Enduro Riders host a fantastic event every year in Delaware City, Delaware.
The club maintains a great relationship with the businesses and government agencies and
arranged camping before the event at the Governor Bacon center and National Armory, with
event signup being downtown at the firehall the past few years.
The Delaware City Fire Co.
Ladies Auxiliary throws a get down shindig dinner the night before the event, breakfast the
day of, and food all day and boy oh boy is it good... Here's a picture of D.E.R. club
referree Charlie Stapleford demonstrating.
Enduros are quite literally, a family event with kids running around everywhere, wives and
girlfriends organizing carpools to spectator points, or stealing away to antique shops and
malls on 6 hour shopping sprees while daddy is wondering where his gas can is.
I just love
enduros, can you tell?
I particularly love the DER enduro, and DER has somehow managed to
secure the date of daylight savings time, posting a keytime of 7 a.m. for the start. How
many guys do you know that drag themselves out of bed at 5 a.m. to race at 7:00 in the
morning for 6 hours and 18 minutes? Enduro riders are bizarre creatures, and it shows at
the Delaware enduro, witch being the weekend prior to Halloween, prompts many riders and
event workers, to show up in costume... D7 rider Griff Drew was apparently a fly, with a
HUGE spider on his back and a first place finish in his class.
But this was no "breeze
through" enduro, not for riders, and certainly not for the club. Along with everything
else, the club is dealing with a new administrator of the Army Corp of Engineers approval
committee who denied the permit request for use of the canal this year. With a little
education it will be back next year. Consequently, we were deprived our annual trek through
"The Sluice" and "The Frag" which have been Delaware perennial trademarks in years past.
However, we did get to experience the infamous Delaware mud in all it's glory. There have
been events here in the past with no finishers, and top honors going to the guy who made it
the farthest, thanks to this mud. We were not expecting it this year, with the recent
drought that has plagued the region over the summer months, but the skies opened up for a
good week long soaker before the event.
Oh god no.. not Delaware mud again!
The rain,
combined with the course format of two loops the club was forced to use, proved a challenge
to both riders and course workers, of which both groups rose magnificently to the occasion.
The course wound through three sections of private land and consisted of a challenging loop
of tight twisties and great terrain 54 miles long. This loop was run once by the C riders,
Masters, and Women's classes, while the A's and B's rode it a second time to complete an
exhausting 102.5 ground (or "mud") miles.
Course workers were kept busy pulling stuck
riders from holes, while simultaneously re-routing around sections of trail made impassable
by traffic. The course got rave reviews, even from riders who were forced to tug and haul
clutch shredded motorcycles packed with mud out to the road and add to the overflowing DNF
score card box back at sign up.
Mike Sigety says "I have never seen so many club members
working and helping out. Sweep riders everywhere, course pointers on the trail, people
directing traffic at turns in the street too, very professional, in fact the most well
organized mayhem (I say that in a good way) I have ever seen."
The starting line left camp first thing in the morning, then wound down through the woods,
popped out onto asphalt for a merry trip down through town and several muddy fields for over
7 miles before dumping into the woods. It was the easiest 7 miles of the day.
Even the
road and field sections were tough later in the day, with bikes packed and loaded with gumbo
mud labored and steamed from one section to another. Bikes with riders leaning against
trees and stuck in mudholes were very familiar even before the end of the first loop with
the most common reply of "It's blown" when they were asked "You ok?".
Most of the C class
houred out at Check 5, the last check of the first loop, with only a reported 9 finishers in
C class. When check crew workers said "Ooooh, you houred out buddy.. it's over", Derrick
Clerici had this to say "Wooooo HOOOO!! yeah!! Yes! It's over! back to the truck!"
lot's of burned up bikes, lot's of overheated bikes. Lot's of tired riders perched in
mudholes. To a man though, the riders gave credit to the club, with spotters and strategic
assistance and creative re-routes around and through boggy bottoms being the best we have
ever seen.... "Man, it was like.. you'd come up to a spot and see 20 people standing there
and know something bad was fixing to happen, and then they'd be routing you around these
poor saps covered in mud". The course did deteriorate fast, with some of the deepest ruts
we've ridden through all year. These were DEEP ruts... radiator shrouds scraping the sides,
and packing radiators with mud, dragging your feet behind your seat to keep from being
pinned, deep. We've been to many runs like this in the past, and look forward to many more
in the future, and we can only hope the host club is as good as Delaware. These guys had
trailers and truck ferries to/from camp to rival the logistics of the United Parcel Service.
This event was the next to last in the A.M.A. National Enduro series, and the final event in
the A.M.A. District 7 Enduro series, with several District 7 trophy places being decided at
this event. Visit www.enduro.4t.com for Final District 7 points tallies. Craig Shenigo,
ECEA AA rider, sealed the GRAND CHAMPION of the District 7 2002 Championship Enduro Series
several races prior to Delaware, and came out to whip up on Jeff Johns in the Vet A class,
taking 1st, to Jeff's second. Mike Sigety and Ken Law both got stuck but managed to finish,
and somewhere, Jack Sr is cussing Wolfy. Scott Wolfersberger, semi retired professional
girl watcher and A Super Senior rider managed to draw row 5 for this muddy run, and you just
KNOW he was grinning about it as he was trenching inviting looking lines for Jack, who was
riding on row 10. They didn't slow our hero though, who only missed Scott's score by 5
minutes, while taking solace in the fact that Tom Marsh, also in A-SSR, caught Wolfy in the
woods from row 6 to take 1st place A-Super.
Along with our local heroes, this year's Delaware enduro National AA riders put on a strong
showing, with a DNF by perennial favorite Michael Lafferty opening the door for Yamaha rider
Randy Hawkins to score the win at Delaware for a few more National series points, which
finally put him in the hunt for another long sought after National Championship. Lafferty's
KTM reportedly seized just after going through a haunted house that was part of the enduro
course. Several riders reported seeing a skull-faced goblin in the house dressed in riding
gear with a Yamaha jersey. It is not known if there is any connection between the goblin and
Randy's win. The trying course conditions did not deter Hawkins, dropping 58 points,
beating second place Fred Hoess by one point. This put Randy into statistical range of
taking the National Series, but another win by Mike Lafferty at the Turkey Creek national in
Indiana relegated Randy to second place after Fred's unfortunate DQ at Turkey Creek, which
netted him 3rd in the National series for 2002.
Delaware TOP 14 Finishers
1 Randy Hawkins 58
2 Fred Hoess 59
3 Barry Hawk 63
4 Robbie Jenks 63
5 Rodney Judson 64
6 Clay Boreing 67
7 Kevin Bennett 71
8 Richard Lafferty 73
9 David Lykke 76
10 Craig Shenigo 76
11 Bill Atkinson 77
12 Michael Grizzle 77
13 Michael Bradway 79
14 Brad Sells 79
15 Jeff Johns 79
16 Dale Sweigart 80
17 Russell Epley 82
18 Mark Grossman 82
19 John Robbins 83
20 Jack Lafferty Jr. 83
High Point A Kevin Bennett
High Point B Jimmy Bates
High Point C John Caruso
Enduro clubs work the hardest at securing event locations, and riding areas for us all,
since they have to find at least 3 times the land as a normal Hare Scramble race. For this
, they deserve our support. Here is a "Thank you" and a request from the host club of this
years ECEA National event.
Thank you from the Delaware Enduro Riders
The Delaware Enduro Riders would like to thank everyone who attended our event.
The state
police were amazed at how polite the riders were at road crossings. We received feed back
from the Governor Bacon center and they can’t believe that we had that many people over
there. The said the grounds looked phoenemal and that we are the most responsible group of
people that they let use the land.
This really helps us out in our effort to regain access
to the canal. We really appreciate the way everyone acted at our event and hope to see all
of you again next year.
We are in the process of creating a form letter that we are going be mailing out to all of
the riders who attended our event and we will also be posting it on our website.
Along with
this letter we are going to be providing the addresses of certain people that we would like
to have you mail these letters to.
This will help greatly in our effort to secure the canal
for future enduros. We would really appreciate it if you would take a couple of minutes and
sign and mail these letters.
Thank you,
DER
This and full results from the enduro can be found on the Delaware Enduro Rider's website:
http://www.delawareenduroriders.com
Jim Henderson, D.E.R. Webmaster
Jim, doing what he does best.. guard the beer
Jamie Henderson - with Wife Erin and sister Kate
Photo: Jim Henderson, Delaware Enduro Riders webmaster
Carl Rehatchek getting spooked as he enters the haunted house.. yes, the house was part of the trail!
Photo: Jim Henderson, Delaware Enduro Riders webmaster
Enduro Referree Charlie Stapleford, doing what HE does best... *grin*
More information on these, and all the ECEA enduros, Hare Scrambles and more can be found at the
East Coast Enduro Association Web page
More information about A.M.A. District 7 can be found at the
Motorcycling Unlimited
of A.M.A. District 7 home page
Go back to the Cycling East Archives page