Desert 100 2017

Every year before the Desert 100 I start getting a little anxious; this year was no exception. We went over Thursday afternoon in the hopes of getting "the spot", well we didn't get the "the spot", but we did get the one right next to it. I don't think I could have asked for nicer weather or a better group to camp with. But it was a very odd year in the sense of the weather and the terrain. Typically, the weekend is spent dodging the wind and the giant dust clouds.... but not this year. After all the snow this last winter the ground was pretty saturated and almost no dust, warm weather (for Spring) on Friday and decent weather Saturday and Sunday. In theory this year should have been perfect conditions except for the giant, bike eating MUD HOLES. These mud pits were something out of a bad 80's horror movie, bikes stuck all the way to exhaust, riders that couldn't get their feet out of the muck and having to more or less crawl out. I had a couple of moments during the race that I thought I was going to have an issue since the "holes" had morphed into fields of mud from a thousand riders trying to get around. There were a few I hit in 3rd gear with the throttle pinned and almost didn't make it! On my second lap I saw several bikes that had just been left; the rider gave up and walked away. These weren't Honda XR400's either, I saw some pretty nice new bikes sitting there covered in caution tape. 
The good news is we all made it through the weekend in one piece and everyone had a good time. Now the hard part, cleaning everything out and getting ready for the next event!