Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1534665
With a handful of state park a endants on-site Sunday morning and well through start control and tech inspec on, it's clear that both sides meant business. "We recognize these guys have a job to do," Kaminski said, and that includes Me- teor sending a digital file of the proposed course to an ad hoc state commi ee in Trenton where its twists and turns are evaluated by plant, animal, historical, forestry and fire-figh ng subject ma er experts to limit risk and ensure there's no dam- age done to surroundings. "Ninety percent understand and agree with the forest being protected," Kaminski said when asked about the mentality of people who choose to enjoy Wharton on two wheels. To the other 10 percent not following the laws as they now stand, he didn't object to some tough love un l behav- ior improves. As one Ocean County Compe on Riders member from Beachwood, New Jersey ex- plained to me, the approval process to run these events is exhaus ve and "once we're done, you can't even tell we were here." An eight-inch-wide, single-file sugar sand groove is o en the only ev- idence, leaving the site in the same u er silence it has enjoyed since me immemorial. He con n- ued: "We love the woods just as much as anyone else… and it is state land. We do pay taxes." With the logis cal hurdles cleared, the first rows of racers leave at 9 a.m. and the ground thuds and thunders with each departure. There's the honor- ary first row for the late and lost and contempla- ve clasped hands over the crossbar reconsidering the brutality of the next five hours. Minute by minute coun ng up to 63, we release the whole procession into withering fire. The furious race against me is a ba le each entrant has with the me bomb cking inside their head and with nature's malicious decision to plant two trees too close together. East of nowhere inside the grand chess game between rooks, racers, bishops and bureaucrats, the checkmates get down to business. We merry few, volunteering for a pleasant a ernoon in the forest with zero seat me, build the designated checkpoint in a way that'll keep this runaway train flowing on its terminal path. Come the final stop all those hours later, where the shell-shocked riders emerge from the woods with 100-yard stares like survivors of Verdun, they don't know whether to laugh, cry, hoot or holler. Bleeding forearms with jerseys in ta ers up to the elbows, broken fenders, dented pipes, smashed headlights and in a total delirium, failing to follow the final red arrow on the tree that told 'em the way back to car and cooler.