National Hare & Hound Round 3
El Centro, CA
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I don't care who you are, if you race desert races often, you're more than kind of nuts. The sheer speed, lack of visibility and other crazy fools zipping by you is easily the scariest of all forms of racing--bike, car, boat, plane, whatever. Since I'd never raced one of these before and Destry Abbott is always giving me a hard time about being a wimp, I decided I'd give his series a try. But I would need the right bike to do it on, so I made him bring me another one of his bikes (read about that in the factory bikes story in the July '09 issue.)
Even with the best desert bike in the world, this is still scary as hell. Hare & Hound races go like this: You line up in the desert and practice your start by finding the least deadly line to the beginning of the course. In this particular case, the start was in the only spot in El Centro that had trees and 10-foot-tall bushes. No biggie, I'm sure the guys coming from the left and right will look both ways (yikes!). Then, you line up when it's time and go like hell for two to three hours when they drop a banner. It's a dead-engine start which is again a joy to master. Don't worry, though: It's always dusty so starts are super important, too.
The terrain is frightening with speeds up in the high double digits and grabbing the 100-mph mark on occasion. Your body is forced to stand watch as you rip across lake beds, sand washes and Wile E. Coyote's backyard with your head over the front fender. That's the first loop. Usually you'll get some sections of technical stuff on the second loop when your brain is fried.
The idea is to spot the things that are going to be in your front tire before they're in your front tire. The problem is they're coming at 60 mph 90 percent of the time. It's almost no fun at all until it's over, and then it's cool.
Easily the hardest part about racing a National Hare & Hound is maintaining. You have to concentrate so hard to avoid upcoming obstacles and anticipate turns that you get a little loopy. That's my theory as to why guys like Destry Abbott and the rest of the professional desert racers are so nice. They don't know how crazy they really are!
So, What's The Hardest?
I raced the appropriate class for my skill/speed level at each of these events. I used different bikes (although two were YZ250s), but all were suitable race machines for each discipline. Heck, some were the best in the world. And in the end I have to give it up to GNCC racing as the toughest off-road racing in America. Why? Because it makes me almost throw up more than the other races. That's not saying the others don't thoroughly kick my ass. But I didn't want any of them to end sooner than I did the GNCC. Plus, if I add in the fact that most racers and especially the pros have to race an extra hour on an extremely beat-up course, it becomes the clear winner. WORCS races are the most intense. National Enduros are the most grueling. National Hare & Hounds are the scariest thing in the world. But GNCCs are the toughest race.