Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/935202
What A RACE! Sharing the podium with Heidi Hawkins & Angel Earles In 2012 at the innocent age of 42, I told my husband Billy I wanted to race. This would actually be my first off-road race and I couldn't think of a better way to test the waters than at the Iconic Hangover Hare Scramble I was fresh off some Hatfield-McCoy trail riding. Yeah, so I figured my trusty Honda CRF 150 and I were ready for the line! About that line— I was the only one on it. Needless to say it was a tough one. I spent most of the time looking over my shoulder and being positively paranoid for two hours; however, there could be no turning back. This was a race and not a trail ride and that's what made me keep my wheels turning. At the end of the day, I took the WIN! (Oh yeah, and the Holeshot…wink-wink!) Perhaps it was that victory or the fact that it was an event that Billy was there to cheer me on as I trudged through that has kept me excited for the Hangover Hare Scramble this long. It's been the one race that I've done no matter what the weather or conditions are. And January in the mid-Atlantic you just don't know what you're going to get. At the time I had no idea that the Hangover Hare Scramble would become the one event that I would race for the next six years. Every November I would start talking about it and enthusiastically spread the word to all my dirt biking girlfriends in hopes of building a women's line. The three years that would follow found me racing on a Honda CRF 230L for which I was totally astonished that I could even ride such a beast! Each year a new battle between me and the course would ensue. I remember 2014 in particular; it was nuts! The mud was insane and the ice— yes, there was one-inch thick ice in all the puddles like mini icebergs. You needed to make your way through but I didn't care. I was cold and wet but determined and excited to be racing. In November of 2015 I started chatting up my friends about the upcoming 2016 Hangover Hare Scramble. Searching online for a flyer for race details, I found I couldn't locate the information so I started poking around and realized it wasn't on any club schedules.