Tree Farm - Secca Round 3

Once again another weekend comes around and we found ourselves gathering gear together to head out early on Saturday morning to Billingsley, Alabama for the 3rd Hare Scramble in the SECCA series.  Clay and Sara picked us up and away we went.  We got to Billingsley after a few wrong turns (the directions weren't quite right) got the guys registered, unloaded and set up.  Chuck and Clay warmed up their bikes, got their gear together and we had a while to sit and relax before the race began.

It got time to gear up and head toward the driver's meeting, when Chuck got on his bike he realized his battery was dead!  The 450 doesn't have a kick start only an e start, so he was pretty much dead in the water!!  He and Clay decided to try and push it off and let him run it for some laps to hopefully charge the battery so it would crank on the starting line.  They pushed it off and got it cranked.  He rode it and headed to the starting line.  Clay told Sara if Chuck's bike didn't crank for us (me and Sara) to push him off.  I told Chuck and he was hesitant because if the lost the bike on the track, he would not be able to restart it.

They began the race and when it got to Chuck's row, I stood on the sideline with my fingers crossed that his bike would crank (for if it didn't, I knew he would be devastated)  the green flag raised and the bike didn't crank!!  Sara and I ran out to him and he said no, do not push.  The next row got the green flag and he said yes, let's push it off.  So the most awesome pit crew (Sara and I) got behind the bike and began to push him off.  Several attempts left us standing there with a dead engine, as Chuck was about to call it over, two men came and helped push him off.  He was the dead last guy to leave the starting line and recovered to 8th place in his line out of 18 riders!!

At the end of the first moto, both guys came in dirty as could be!!  The dust was terrible!!  They were having a great time.  Chuck was pretty stoked that he was able to pass and end the first moto in 8th place.  We asked the guy parked next to us if he had a battery charger and he did (he was in a loaded out motorhome, so we kind of figured he would).  We put the bike on a trickle charger and the second moto the bike started.  Thank goodness, not sure we could have pushed him off again.

At the end of the second moto, the guys came to the truck and we bathed them with ice cold bottled water out of the cooler (all we had), they changed and we loaded everything up.  Clay wasn't feeling well, so he was going to sit in the truck.  When he got in the drivers seat to crank the truck, he realized the battery was dead.  He asked a man to jump us off.  I had gone to throw away the garbage and as I walked back up to the truck I saw Clay remove the jumper cables off the truck and pass out and fall to the ground.  Sara screamed and ran over to Clay, hollering his name and tapping him on the face.  I ran to the back of the truck and got Chuck (who had NO idea what was going on), several people around saw the commotion and came to see if they could help.  We were all worried and in just minute or so, Clay woke up and wondered what we were all doing standing around him.

We think his sugar dropped and he passed out.  He has since been to the doctor and they can not find anything wrong with him.  We got Clay in the truck and headed home.  We are so very thankful that he is ok.

Oh, the memories made while racing dirtbikes.