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Let's not forget the silly/fun stuff that happened off the race course. During one race, a guy was sitting in the pits, sampling some of Napa's best when some of the kids found some baby rattlesnakes. "Let me show you how we catch those in Oklahoma." he said, then tried to pick one up. The little snake adeptly and quickly bit him on the finger. "Oh, the little !@#$%* bit me!!" The immediate outcome was a rushed trip to the Ridgecrest hospital and a stay that was, as I heard later, over a week, The medical people at Ridgecrest told the club that little snakes have even move potent venom than the big ones. For a while after that, some of the guys would bring out dead rattlesnake meat to barbeque, perhaps to make amends and show how much smarter they may have been?

I remember a Shamrock Enduro that ran up the Kelso Creek. There was an abandoned and small line shack in the middle of things, and the Shamrocks had decorated that building with a sign: "Checker Clubhouse"

And not to be forgotten was the time the L.A. aqueduct was drained in the Red Rock area. I was out trailing; some of the other riders stopped and took a swim in a cattle trough that became filled with water. And then there was a lady, wife of a racer, who trail rode her 250 Husky. A big tall lady. She used to like to ride out near the train tracks away from camp in the Red Mountain area. If a train was coming along, she'd take off her clothes above the waist, and wave at the train's engineers!!!

And the time way back in Red Rock Canyon when some slightly intoxicated old timer chased me with a gun 'cause my friend and I went through his property. At that moment, in the midst of his yelling, my friend's Hodaka threw its chain. We were scared, but the old guy calmed down, and brought us each an OLYMPIA beer - remember that beer? Lots of free spirit, lots of fun in the Mohave. May this too last...

-- David Buchman