Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1514917
18 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com A Real 12-Month Riding Season! A Real 12-Month Riding Season! TORCS 2024 Round 1, Goertz Ranch TORCS 2024 Round 1, Goertz Ranch Bastrop, Texas Bastrop, Texas By Jeff DeBell By Jeff DeBell A er over three decades in Kansas, I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel...reaching re rement. A year ago I suffered through the coldest Kansas win- ter in years with minus double digit temps and the ever present plains winds. I'd had enough and started making plans to move south. I'd met a gal from Texas, which gave me an excuse to try out a Texas Off Road Championship Series (TORCS) race that I reported on about a year ago here in Trail Rider. I moved down here last fall and was pleased to find TORCS races year round thanks to the mild winter weather. Texas is a big state. You can literally start driving in the morning and s ll be in Texas by nigh all. As such, it has several state race series depending on what part of the state you live in. The TORCS series is in south Texas between Houston and Aus n. The Texas State Championship Enduro Circuit (TSCEC) covers the whole state but has divided their series into a High Plains division which includes west Texas events and events in southern Colorado and eastern New Mexico, a Sabine division which is the east side of the state as well as events in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and a Championship division which includes 14 events in both the High Plains and Sabine divisions. There are other regional cross country series I'm s ll finding out about and there are any number of motocross tracks and private riding areas in various parts of the state. The point is, if you want to ride year round, the south is where it's at. You can swat mosquitos in December, eat some pre y darned good barbeque, gorge yourself on crawfish (if you're close to the coast), and check out BucEes, the largest gas sta ons you'll ever see. I don't know what the biggest BucEes is, but I've been into a cou- ple that have over 100 gas pumps (all being used simultaneously) and rest room capacity that puts any pro sports stadium to shame. TORCS finished out 2023 with an early December hare scramble and a New Year's family ride day and two hour team race. Two weeks later, the 2024 season kicked off with the first round of hare scrambles racing at the Goertz Ranch near Bastrop, TX. If you remember from last year's ar cle, TORCS races both Saturday and Sunday with over 40 class- es available, everything from Stacyc's for the kids to super duper senior 70-plus class and everything in between. Being the first race of the year, turnout was huge. I started coun ng Saturday entries and gave up when I got over 300.