Well, had a Saturday evening with just me and the little one, so we decided to head west to the little home away from home and catch some Enduro style action, with a little side order of everyone's fave, the Chaos Cars....and we were not disappointed!

Now its been a while since I last saw an enduro. You hear on the boards how dismal the car count has gotten, same guys winning all the time etc. What they don't tell you is that its still a hell of a show.

I tried to "take the night off" from reporting, but after a few laps of the opener, I started to feel naked without my notebook and had to go around begging folks for pen and paper. And luckliy Mr and Mrs Crazylady were there and just happened to have a sheet.

Heat 1 - 30 laps

Not much in the way of notes for this one. 7-Fothergill takes an early lead and is passed at mid-point by 11-Coward. Not too much mayhem in the first race.

Coming across the line it was 1st to Coward, 2nd to Fothergill, 3rd to 45-Watson, 4th to 37-Arrand,  5th to 17-Grover.

Heat 2 - 30 laps

06 Ferguson jumps to an early lead and begins to leave the feild behind as 64-Book and 15-Goertz fight their way to the front. But it wasn't Ferguson's night as he grenades the motor leaving a huge oil slick in turn 1. SOme guys can handle it, some guys can't, but the field at least manages to keep it off the wall. This gives Book the lead with 15-Goertz right behind, and that's the way it stays. 1st Book, 2nd Goertz, 3rd 9-Jeffery, 4th 41-Orr, 5th 16-Goertz

As Book is driving away from his checker flag interview, he suddenly finds himself slaloming thru a buch of barrels that had been set up on the fronstretch, and you know what time it is now.

Say it with me Ryan, its Chaos time.

Chaos Cars.

In attendance are the usual suspects, Tyssen in the Snotrod, John Kok in "Wednesday", Rabideau in Bush Bomb, Triska in Blue Thunder and Rob Armstrong (?) in Red Baron.

Tonight's course was a simple one. Start at the start line, slolam thru the barrels to turn 1. 360 degree barrel turn in turn 1 and back down the frontstretch. Slolam again. Bus stop turns down to turn 4. Another 360 in turn 4 and then back to the start line to the flag. We start off with a series of match races. Snotty pulls a last minute move to beat Blue Thunder. Wed beats Red Baron. Snotty beats Red Baron...and then my pen runs out. In the final, its all 5 guys with 1 lap for all the marbles, and basically it comes down to Blue Thunder and Wednesday, and at the stripe its Blue Thunder with the win...and a good time was had by all. Blue Thunder and Snot Rod seem to have a pretty good rivalry going as far as numbers of green shirts vs blue shirts in the stands. Afterwards, all the Chaos boys pull them up to the concourse up top to sign autographs.       

Transmission Direct Enduro Feature - 150 Laps

And now its time for the main event. Now, I can't begin to give a full blow by blow count, which is why I always hesitated about doing enduro races. Suffice it to say, there was 58 cars, give or take, and you know...thats more than enough. there's so much going on in one of these races that half the time you don't know where to look.

Right off the first lap, one guy in a dark Camaro...didnt get a number but his people had "Redneck racing" shirts on, does a double 360 right on the frontstretch in front of pretty much the entire field, causing everyone, who are already 4 wide to bottleneck to get around him. Miraculously, he makes it out mostly unscathed, but heads her into the pits. I don't think he came back out.

Early on, its Fothergill up front and building a lead while the the other top guys, mainly Coward and Watson, fight their way up front. By lap 20. Fothergill gets hung up with a spinning 74-Cook, and Coward dives past. Fothergill's out of line now and by lap 30 or so the order is Coward, Watson, 15-Goertz, Jeffery, and 4-Lynch.

Coward hangs on till around lap 50 and now 15-Goertz is right up to him, and its quite a show watching these guys weaving thru slow cars and trying to out-chess the other guy. Lap 54 and 15-Goertz gets into Coward. Coward goes hard off the frontstrech wall and Goertz slips past. Now...a pretty good show of sportsmanship here. It looked to me as though Goertz had realized what he'd done and (still under green) actually backed out and gave Coward his spot back. That was pretty cool. So 11 is still out front, and the chess match continues. At the 60 lap mark, its Coward, 15-Goertz, Jeffrey, Watson and Orr.

By Lap 65, there's a gaggle of lapped cars the leaders are coming up to. 4 wide and Coward goes high and Goertz goes low. Goetz comes out in front.

Now there's a little bit of comedy as the 8 car of Kuykendall spins in trun 2 and ends up stuck briefly in the little dtich. A shower of gravel and some smoke, and he's out again.

Now the not so funny, as the 10 car, piloted by Stephen Richmond, loses a tire on the frontstretch and it actually goes over the fence, coming down and striking Chris, the young guy who minds the frontstretch gate in the shoulder. Luckily, Chris had seen it coming and was already hauling ass out of there, so it was a glancing blow. But a tire's still plenty heavy and there's a red flag while they walk Chris down to Race Med. Good news is he was fine, although pretty sore.

Now by lap 100, the scoreboard is showing 15-Goertz out front, then Coward, Jeffery, 39-McCullough and Orr. At this point, its looking like the top 3 are the only ones left on the lead lap. Disaster strikes in spectacular fashion for 117-Rumble as he loses his whole right front wheel on the frontstretch with an impressive rooster tail of sparks.

Getting down to the end now, lap 122 and there's disaster in turn 3 as 160-Machado's motor blows and leaves oil all over turn 3. Coward goes completely around in it but manages to hang onto 2nd. Both McCullough cars go piling in as do multiple others over the course of the closing laps.

And in the end, its Goetz with the checkers, 2nd to Coward, 3rd to Orr, 4th to Jeffrey and 5th to 82-Brunelle. (Fothergill was 6th)

Down in turn 1, 01-Chapman, painted like the Dukes of Hazzard puts his nose to the turn 1 frontstretch wall, Ryan Newman style, and puts up a huge cloud of burnout smoke....just for fun.

And dammit thats what tonight was all about...fun. It may not be the most professional looking show in the world, but you got to see 58 regular guys driving their asses off for 150 laps. Put that with the Chaos boys and you get a night at the races that has that old-school "country fair" atmosphere that the regular Friday night show lacks. (Later I got to see a bunch of kids lining up for a picture in front of the Snot-Rod...they each posed with one finger up their noses. Doesn't get any better than that eh?).

Did I have fun?  ;D ;D ;D Hell yeah!

Congrats to all the Enduro guys. I know you don't get much love on the boards, but you don't play second fiddle to anyone.

(And we'll wait with bated breath to see if Dougy follows through on his promise/threat when the day comes that he finishes a race!)

Shadow out.  😉