The Boyne Report –Kona Midwest Racing 2005
Kona Midwest is not so much one thing, but a whole made up of smaller parts. The parts are the team members the whole is the team. As a team we are much stronger and our strength would be tested at the 2005 24 hours of Boyne Mountain. The members started the transformation to team as a few of us collected at Bryan Mitchell’s house to begin loading supplies. Bryan Mitchell is co-captain of the team along with myself. At Bryan’s were also Jim Schofield & Bill Rushford. Jim is a member and Bill is a support member that will keep the team well oiled for the event. All packed up and ready to go with fresh out of the oven cookies from Bryan’s wife, Alice, we are off.
Cruising along with everyone else headed up north on the I-96 freeway everything is going great. Then a slight whistling noise is detected by Bryan. He looks over and asks me what that is. Ever the optimist I tell him it is nothing and keep driving. Five miles down the road, Whooomphh. Then there was a large silence followed by the realization that my roof rack just blew off the car. Checking my rearview mirror I expected to see our bikes getting smashed about on the freeway. I see instead to my later amusement the bikes skidding along behind us upright in the rack. They were skidding along at 70 mph with the rack feet smoking. I watched them skid off the freeway and stop neatly on the shoulder. I bring the car under control. I drive back to the bikes. There they are two still up right in the rack one laying on its side. Shear shock and terror is replaced by relief and humor as we realize the bikes are okay and we are taking part in the first good story of the weekend. Only bummer is we will now need to back track almost two hours to get a vehicle that can carry our bikes.
Nine hours later shortly after midnight we arrive at Boyne Mountain. The members are now together and the team is whole. After some stories we are off to bed and fall into a light nervous sleep.
Let’s Go Let’s Go. Saturday morning I wanted to sleep in. “To much to do, need to get up”; I think to myself as I pry my head off my pillow. First order of business is to eat mass amounts of pancakes & coffee. Then start working on the bike, pick up the number plates, sign the waivers, set up the pit, have the team meeting, get ready, have the race meeting, get our strategy down, get our two riders to the start, and at 12 noon on Saturday go.
The race is off. Kona Midwest is competing in two classes Pro-Open & Pro-Vet. Both 4 person relay teams both in the top divisions. The vet class has a little higher average age though. The Pro-Open team is Peter Ehmann, Justin Desilets, Dan Sypniewski, & Chris Filipiak. The Pro-Vet team is Jim Schofield, Eric Henricks, Bryan Mitchell, and Terry Ritter who is pinch hitting for Kona Midwest member Jamie Parker. Jamie crashed hard during a road race a week before and is healing quickly. The competition in both classes will be extremely intense. We knew we were out gunned in both classes, but felt if we caught a little luck we may squeak out on win.
I am scheduled to go off a little after 2pm, taking the hand off from Dan. At 1:45pm there was a down poor soaking Dan while he was on course and making the course slippery for me. About halfway through my first lap I took a little spill on a log pile injuring my hand. Not to bad, I just needed to remember to take some Motrin when I finished the lap. I get done and hand the baton to Pete for his 2nd lap. Bill our support person takes my dirty muddy bike and promises to have it running good as new for my next lap. The rain stops and everything is going well. For about twelve laps we have no problems and are only about 10 minutes down. That was less then a minute a lap. We had first place nervous this was good.
At a little after 8 pm I had my lights on my bike and set off for the team’s first night lap. It was uneventful except for enjoying the sunset and wanting to get back quickly so I could take a nap. Around eleven I went out for my first real night lap. I had trouble. I crashed and my light went out and it took me a while to get going again. Then as I was cruising down the trail trying to adjust my light I turned it off and almost crashed again. I came to a quick halt turned my light back on and was off. My 2am lap was a 2 am lap, hellish and slow. My 5am lap I was pushing to hard on the last downhill and had a bad crash. Fortunately I was uninjured and was able to finish up the lap a little shaken and dirty.
Around seven in the morning I realized we were close to being lapped by the first place team. Our night had not gone well and we had been unlucky. We were down. We had a quick meeting and realized we would need to pick it up if we wanted to get to 32 laps, the record for the course. We needed to average 45 minutes a lap for the next 5 hours if we were to get there. The team went to work. 44, 44, 45, 46, 44, 44, 45 minutes the team clicked out the laps. We picked up 20 minutes on the first place team. I rode last leaving for our 32nd lap 2 minutes before the Noon cut off. We would have our 32 laps and finish with the same number as the first place team. I just needed to get back safely and cross the line for the final time. I wanted to do it quickly because I new my team would be there with applause and beer. That kept me going and when I crossed the finish line it was just as I imagined.
The pro-vet team also worked very hard, but like us had been unlucky in the night. They did all that they could and in the end took 2nd place just 11 minutes back from first place with 29 laps.
After the awards the team returned to say goodbye and the whole turned back into its members. Leaving everyone to either drive home or spend the night at Boyne. The few who spent the night at Boyne enjoyed a soothing dip in the hot tub, followed by a nice dinner on the side of the mountain. Then ironically we found ourselves wanting to ride bikes. So we took the chairlift up twice and did two runs down the mountain. It was amazing to me that what we wanted to do less then 6 hours after we finished riding for 24 hours was to ride bikes again. Biker’s are there own special type of people and I could not ask for better friends and teammates.
We woke up Monday morning did a couple more runs down the mountain and started the long drive home…….. Crispy
