04-15-2013, 10:11 PM
A hare scramble is an off-road event on a marked course through the woods, using what are pretty much motocross bikes. A coworker of mine said he ran most of a season and is again this year, so I went to spectate, with interest in potential participation. I figured I'd share what I learned.
![[Image: DSC_9971-M.jpg]](http://ag27214.smugmug.com/VCHSS/2012/Blue-Rige-I/i-rx9xDkW/0/M/DSC_9971-M.jpg)
WIth the VCHSS, an AMA organization, the races are 1.5 to 2 hours long. And the schedule's pretty nice, held about every 3 weeks and all in VA. This weekend's course they cut on a 5000 acre horse farm was 7.5 miles, 4 laps.
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Here's some things I like:
Cheap. It's $65 to join, and a race day is $30. So we're talking like, karting day entry costs here. Equipment costs are as little as you care to spend. A used bike, a couple hundred bucks worth of safety gear, and low consumables. And of hauling is anything from a long-bed pickup truck to a full camper.
It's almost all skill. With this terrain, there isn't much incentive to spend a ton on the bike. Not that that doesn't stop a lot of people, and newish looking KTMs represented half the hardware there, but the rules are pretty lax on modifications, and I can see why. The fast guys are clearly fast because they're good at it, not because they spent more. The stratification on finishing times was vast in most classes.
Safe (at least by bike standards). Bike mostly stays on the ground, and average race speed *for the leader* is around 18MPH. My coworker averaged 14. It's mostly very tight and technical. Some open field time here and there to wind out, but then there's nothing to hit. So when you do fall off, injuries are light to none and bike damage is usually minimal.
Huge participation. There were 3 main races. With 10-15 classes in each race and 15-25 bikes in most classes. Each class starts, engines off, one minute behind the preceding class, so it's pretty wild when they drop the flag... 10-15 times in a row. Most bikes were 2-strokes, but there was a 4-stroke class, and 4-strokes were found here and there in other classes too.
Lower time commitment. You pull in any time saturday, most people camp, hang out, lots of families, beer, dogs, whatever. Then you just have your one time slot sunday (I *think* you could run two?), pack it up and call it a weekend. Some people just showed up sunday morn.
Some things to think more about:
The race length. This is an endurance event. Most everyone's got a camelbak or similar, and since you're an active suspension component and standing half the time... well I better start working out, now!
There's some tricks to prepping the bike. As I said, pretty open rules. And there's a lot to learn by just walking around. A bike set up for motocross isn't really ready for a hare scramble. Shorter bars, lots of guards, it will be running over all kinds of stuff, and I'd be willing to bet further Mad-Max type ingenuity could be rewarded in this area.
Organization needs improvement.
1) A thousand good-ol-boys on motorcycles in one place with little restriction on where to ride leads to paddock and spectator areas that seemed a bit less safe than your average track or autocross day. People, dogs, kids on motos, trucks, everywhere.
2) They had some timing and scoring issues. BIG TIME. Coworker said he'd never seen anything like that, it obviously doesn't happen often, but they delayed the first race an HOUR due to computer failure. No backup computer? No 2nd backup to just use paper and a few volunteers? No plan to let the 100+ people sitting on grid, in the sun, with gear on to go relax for a bit and come back. No announcements to notify the later groups that they were now off schedule. Just nothing. Maybe this crowd is just a litte more lax, but I hope the organizers learned it might be worth having a plan for next time.
3) Track safety should have been stressed more. Though I think that's true for bike track weekends too. People stood REALLY close to the course, no reminder of safe passing rules and little protocol talk. Maybe it just looked like chaos to me since it was my first time, but it appears people will likely get hurt for preventable reasons. FWIW they do have a couple marshals riding, more out on course, and the spectators expect to respond too, so maybe they just ensure they don't lose or leave anybody in the woods and figure there's no point telling people how to do it.
No pace lap? Eh, well I guess I won't knock it until I've tried it. Apparently you're allowed to walk the... 7.5 mile course... but it's rare they allow bikes. We walked about a mile of it. I guess that's part of the game, reading the terrain at speed. It's not like you're going to learn the whole course in a few laps anyway, but it'd take some faith to just speed through lap one of a course cut by people I don't know.
:dunno: Ok that's all I have to say! Anyone tried one of these? I mean, hell, I figure it's worth a shot! I just need to do some trail riding first so I don't look like this guy. :lol:
![[Image: 2011_AF_Unknown.jpg]](http://vchss.org/images/2011/2011_AF_Unknown.jpg)
WIth the VCHSS, an AMA organization, the races are 1.5 to 2 hours long. And the schedule's pretty nice, held about every 3 weeks and all in VA. This weekend's course they cut on a 5000 acre horse farm was 7.5 miles, 4 laps.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://vchss.org/pages/2013_vchss_schedule.htm">http://vchss.org/pages/2013_vchss_schedule.htm</a><!-- m -->
Here's some things I like:
Cheap. It's $65 to join, and a race day is $30. So we're talking like, karting day entry costs here. Equipment costs are as little as you care to spend. A used bike, a couple hundred bucks worth of safety gear, and low consumables. And of hauling is anything from a long-bed pickup truck to a full camper.
It's almost all skill. With this terrain, there isn't much incentive to spend a ton on the bike. Not that that doesn't stop a lot of people, and newish looking KTMs represented half the hardware there, but the rules are pretty lax on modifications, and I can see why. The fast guys are clearly fast because they're good at it, not because they spent more. The stratification on finishing times was vast in most classes.
Safe (at least by bike standards). Bike mostly stays on the ground, and average race speed *for the leader* is around 18MPH. My coworker averaged 14. It's mostly very tight and technical. Some open field time here and there to wind out, but then there's nothing to hit. So when you do fall off, injuries are light to none and bike damage is usually minimal.
Huge participation. There were 3 main races. With 10-15 classes in each race and 15-25 bikes in most classes. Each class starts, engines off, one minute behind the preceding class, so it's pretty wild when they drop the flag... 10-15 times in a row. Most bikes were 2-strokes, but there was a 4-stroke class, and 4-strokes were found here and there in other classes too.
Lower time commitment. You pull in any time saturday, most people camp, hang out, lots of families, beer, dogs, whatever. Then you just have your one time slot sunday (I *think* you could run two?), pack it up and call it a weekend. Some people just showed up sunday morn.
Some things to think more about:
The race length. This is an endurance event. Most everyone's got a camelbak or similar, and since you're an active suspension component and standing half the time... well I better start working out, now!
There's some tricks to prepping the bike. As I said, pretty open rules. And there's a lot to learn by just walking around. A bike set up for motocross isn't really ready for a hare scramble. Shorter bars, lots of guards, it will be running over all kinds of stuff, and I'd be willing to bet further Mad-Max type ingenuity could be rewarded in this area.
Organization needs improvement.
1) A thousand good-ol-boys on motorcycles in one place with little restriction on where to ride leads to paddock and spectator areas that seemed a bit less safe than your average track or autocross day. People, dogs, kids on motos, trucks, everywhere.
2) They had some timing and scoring issues. BIG TIME. Coworker said he'd never seen anything like that, it obviously doesn't happen often, but they delayed the first race an HOUR due to computer failure. No backup computer? No 2nd backup to just use paper and a few volunteers? No plan to let the 100+ people sitting on grid, in the sun, with gear on to go relax for a bit and come back. No announcements to notify the later groups that they were now off schedule. Just nothing. Maybe this crowd is just a litte more lax, but I hope the organizers learned it might be worth having a plan for next time.
3) Track safety should have been stressed more. Though I think that's true for bike track weekends too. People stood REALLY close to the course, no reminder of safe passing rules and little protocol talk. Maybe it just looked like chaos to me since it was my first time, but it appears people will likely get hurt for preventable reasons. FWIW they do have a couple marshals riding, more out on course, and the spectators expect to respond too, so maybe they just ensure they don't lose or leave anybody in the woods and figure there's no point telling people how to do it.
No pace lap? Eh, well I guess I won't knock it until I've tried it. Apparently you're allowed to walk the... 7.5 mile course... but it's rare they allow bikes. We walked about a mile of it. I guess that's part of the game, reading the terrain at speed. It's not like you're going to learn the whole course in a few laps anyway, but it'd take some faith to just speed through lap one of a course cut by people I don't know.
:dunno: Ok that's all I have to say! Anyone tried one of these? I mean, hell, I figure it's worth a shot! I just need to do some trail riding first so I don't look like this guy. :lol:
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a van is a good guy with a van
![[Image: dsc03351.jpg]](http://www.xtrememotorbikes.com.au/Uploads/Images/dsc03351.jpg)