1985 Quicksilver National Enduro

1985 was memorable for three reasons - the good, bad and the ugly. 

The Good:  There was a storm threatening (isn't there always?) so my brother-in-law, Brian Winn, slept outside in his sleeping bag daring the storm to hit.  It didn't.  In fact it held off until we had all of the riders and check crews back in camp on Sunday afternoon.

The Bad: I broke Bob day's hip. I didn't mean to.  It was an accident.  I had been up at the upper gate posting a course marker before the start and realized that I had a sign that I needed to post at the start.  The quickest way was down the main road.  Since there were only a few minutes before keytime I did not expect that there would be any traffic on the road.  I was wrong.  On a blind turn just above camp I collided with Bob who, with a cigar clinched in his teeth, was leading his check crew out to their check.  I was on the gas and he had his head turned looking out over our campgrounds.  I banged up my shoulder good but Bob was hurt.  I got up and hightailed it to the start to warn the riders and to get a vehicle up the road to pick up Bob.

The Ugly: As I mentioned above, the rain held off until we had everyone in, or so I thought.  Turns out that a rider whose bike broke down decided to go out after it since it was only about 6 miles into the course. He and a friend took off riding double on his buddy's Can-Am.  Then it started to rain.  Really rain.  Around 7PM someone came to get me because the guy's wife was in a panic because he had not made it back to camp.  On investigating I learned the rider number and recalled that earlier in the day, while sweeping, I had hiked this guy to the nearest check after he had put a hole in the case of his Honda.  I knew where his bike was.  So in a driving rain, with a shoulder that was killing me from the earlier crash, on a borrowed bike with a headlight and fellow club member Donald (the Duck) Deshazer as a partner, we headed out to where I had last seen the Honda on what is now R008.  The plan was for JR Mendes to drive into Clear Creek in his 4WD pick-up with a trailer to where the road turns uphill towards New Idria and to wait for us.

Don and I made it over to the last known location and there were no bikes or riders to be found.  On a hunch, we headed down R008 and in not too long a time came across the two riders, huddled under a large tree with the beginnings of a fire going. They were no doubt happy to see us come to the rescue.  Turns out they had filled the Honda with oil after trying to patch the case, gotten it started and were heading down R008 when the Honda quit and they ran out of daylight.  The Can-Am still ran and I told them the plan was to hike the Honda rider out to the truck and then load up the bikes on the trailer.  The the Honda rider said that he did not want to leave his bike and eventually persuaded me to tow him down to the truck.  What a bunch of fun that was!  When we got to the truck we were only able to load three bikes so guess who got to ride back 12 miles to camp in the rain?   A couple of years later the Honda rider wrote about the incident in City Bike and said some very nice things about the Quicksilver!  Ed Tobin  

Articles:

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Results:

     AA/A-200        A-250, A-SNR       A-Opn, A-SSR       B-OPN, C-4STK   

      A-4STK                                        B-SSR, B-WM                                       

C-Open, B-SSR    C-200, C-250        C-Opn, B-4Stk_

B-4STK                C-Wmn, C-SSR     B-Senior