Alan Westerfield's Big Hill Race Report (2007)
"White Lightnin's Easy Summer"

Race Report: Kentucky Off Road Hare Scrambles Series (KORHS) - Round 9
Rider: Alan Westerfield - Bike 4th Place Overall
Bike: 07 Yamaha YZ290F #4

By: Alan "Dust Puppy" Westerfield

To be quite honest, White Lightnin’ has had an easy summer. No more than two gallons of fuel have been run through her tank since……..Clay City remix. Last week I freshened her up with new fork seals and all the preventative maintenance. I’ve not been real happy with my suspension (from a northern shop that wants to get paid twice for one job- yeah, wouldn't we all like that:) so I used some tranny fluid from work in the forks instead of buying the special stuff…..and I’m going to buy a nitrogen bottle and service my shock myself too. I figure if it don’t work out, at least I can inhale the gas to make myself talk funny- or maybe I’m thinking of the wrong gas, but we’ll check into it. It looked like I was going to be riding stag across the state over to Big Hill, so I threw a mattress in the van with my scooter, filled up with $83.00 worth of magic fuel and took off. It was nice to see fuel prices up again, but what can you expect when an oil well breaks down in Uganda. Totally wrecks the economy.

As I approached Bowling Green, I called “the real deal” Eric Gill and persuaded him to go with me. A true friend is always ready for an adventure……..so I picked him up on the way. The freedom fuel back at home pretty well crashed my wallet so we decided to camp- which is code for sleeping in the van around midnight on Saturday night. When I layed down beside this bear of a man…I knew I was in trouble. I tried so hard to force myself to fall asleep first because I had forgotten my i-Pod and had no ear plugs. I was doing math and word problems in my head trying to dose off. About 30 minutes later, I heard the faint sound of a diesel engine trying to start up. My anxiety and anticipation of the next sound kept me wide awake. The demon’s howl began to wale out of his nostrils and I knew right then and there I was a fish out of water. The sounds were mixed with two stroke engines, four stroke engines, and an occasional gasp for air followed by a carb backfire. It would subside just long enough for me to almost submit to the blackness, only to come back to life with more fury than before. It was nearly 2 AM. I contemplated laying a blanket on the ground, on the trailer, on top of the van, anywhere but here. There was a plastic bag near that I even thought about putting over his head, but I knew if he got free, it would turn out bad for me. I took my flashlight and shined up his nostrils out of curiosity to try and illuminate the malfunction. Finally, in an act of desperation, I turned around and put my head by his feet and vise versa. Eric Gill is the toughest cat I know. His foot has toes pointing in ways that they don’t make shoes for, and other bones that indicate breaks that never healed……or healed backwards- all spawned from a childhood of learning to motocross an XR 75 in flip flops. The Marlboro Man has got nothin on this guy- doesn’t stand a chance, not even on his horse. I folded my ear lobes into my canal and wrapped a pillow over my head. The vibrations worked their way through. Finally, about 4 AM, I turned the van radio on to a variety station, about half throttle. I drifted off to “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”. 30 minutes later, the sun came and the hills became alive with the sound of dads making sure the minibikes are ready to hit six million RPM. Sleeping is not something I am good at anyway. This summer I have been plagued with restlessness, and even scheduled a sleep study but elected to try some OTC remedies first- but they make me too drowsy on race day.

The 60% chance of rain showers failed to materialize and I knew it was going to be a crap sling. The ground was as hard as concrete and dust would be thick. I didn’t feel too bad considering, but coming to the line I had a terrible headache and became sick to my stomach. A quick trip to the weeds for an attempted regurgitation yielded nothing in return but a bloated stomach and a spinning head–Perfect for a dusty, hot, beat your brains out race through the woods. My start was decent until I got pinched off and discarded to the rear of the pack. Since I couldn’t see anything anyway, I put it on cruise control and just tooled around. Soon, Whibs came rushing up behind so I pulled over to let him eat the dust and make more for me. Visibility was terrible, so the game plan was to ride for points and pick off the stragglers. The first was Loupie, who was tangled in a sapling. Loup finally wiggled free and caught back up. The kid was obviously more energetic than myself so I let him by once again. Near the end of the lap, we passed someone else, but I can’t say who because they were in a cloud of dust. On lap two, the hills began to give away to a mixture of deep silt, rocks and roots and littered with riders digging for China. I kept a safe pace - I did not want to hit the ground on this hardpack stuff. It was on lap three that I came upon Broc Sims lying on the ground. I stopped to assist. His face was red and he was holding his head. Finally, I convinced him to tell me where it hurts and he said it was his head. He had wiped out on one of the dusty uphills and rung his bell pretty good. I stopped in to tell his dad he was ok and would be out in a minute and continued my boring ride.

To top off my luck, my quick-fill (which is really just one of those universal pieces of junk) began leaking before the race. I had to fill up with my red “vent-less” gas can from Wal-Mart. It should be illegal to sell such a junk-wad of a gas can. It’s the most non-vented piece of Twisted Chinese Engineering you could possibly expect from a corporate giant. You can’t even get the old five gallon cans anymore with a real vent- I’m sure some genius tried to pour gas out the vent instead of the spout while smoking and ruined his sisters pick-up or something. Needless to say, I had the longest pit stop known to man. I really didn’t care though, because this race was going on and on. I stopped on one lap and ask them how long we have to keep riding around and around. It gets pretty boring after an hour and a half anyway and I’m ready to wrap it up by then. I mean, if you cant get it done in an hour and a half, you probably ain’t got what it takes to….please don’t make me say…..Git er done.

I ended up taking 4rth place and being glad it was over. The track would have been a lot better with a good rain, but probably never as good as it was the first time we raced there. After the race I learned of The Real Deal being out of gas somewhere out there. By the time I found the bike, he had already sprinted to the pits and was almost back! He still took a top ten overall position confirming that he really is an animal. I can definitely tell today that I haven’t ridden the bike in a while. My wrist pretty much has no mobility and I feel like someone beat on me just a bit. I’m still trying to figure out if you get sore because you worked out an odd, unnatural assortment of muscle groups or if these dirt bikes just beat the total juice out of you. I know mine really kicked around and rode like a jackhammer all day- so in a way I hope everyone else’s did too. So much for being mature huh? Good Day everyone.

Alan Westerfield, #4