We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.  ~ Hilaire Belloc

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive

When we realize our insignificance in this world,
it some how relieves the pressures from society to succeed -  Cindy Bonish 04/07

2007 Red Bull Last Man Standing
Bulcher Texas

What do you do the first week of December when you've got nothing else to do?  For us, we decided to take a road trip from our road trip and head over to Bulcher Texas for the Red Bull Last Man Standing Endurance Race. Known around the world as one of the toughest races in the sport, and by far the nastiest race in the United States, this event attracts riders from all over the world.

Red Bull Energy Drink brings 300 of the best Class “A” riders together from around the world to try and qualify, but only 100 riders will make the cut and be able to duke it out in this tiny town on the Oklahoma/Texas border.

Riders must complete two 40 mile loops around this track of enduro-cross, man made obstacles and everything Mother Nature can dish out at them. After the second heat of the day, once the lead rider has crossed the finish line, they start the stop watch.

The other 99 riders have one hour to finish in order to make it to the 3rd and final lap of the race. The same course they’ve run twice already during the daytime, they must now switch the direction and run it at night! Like I said, this is one of the hardest races in the world, and just what we had come to watch. What more could you ask for!?

The Road Trip to Bulcher

My wife and I who travel full time in our 25’ Travel Trailer were actually in Tucson Arizona when we got the call from a good friend and Michigan local Brett McMillen. Brett owns Dirtbag Designs in Milford Michigan and makes motorcycle covers for off-road bikes.  We met him when we got the Dirt Bag Cover that keeps our bike on the back of the camper clean while we roll along the back roads of America.

Brett told us he had been checking our website and noticed we were in Arizona. “That’s only a day’s drive from Texas” he said.

“Pack up the camper and get your butts up to Bulcher” he was saying while Cindy was already looking on our GPS unit at how far this little road trip was going cost us.

If you’re going to travel fulltime in an RV, you have to be ready to pull up anchor at the drop of a hat and head out to the next event, no matter where it is. So within a few minutes of hanging up with Brett, we were rolling East on I-10 headed for Bulcher.  A road trip within a road trip if you will.

Driving across Texas is not something that you can do in a hurry. We’re talking long open roads dotted with abandon gas stations, dried up farm towns and oil wells as far as the horizon can stretch; and in Texas, that’s pretty far! We were only slowed down with one flat tire on the camper and a few of the road side attractions that we had to pull over to photograph. I won’t bore you with the details of the long drive, but I’ll just warn you, it was too LONG! Thank the God’s that a few Red Bull Energy Drinks were in our cooler to keep us awake.

One of the many interesting Road Side attractions!

Pulling into Bulcher

We pulled into the Red River Motorcycle riding area late on Thursday night. We were a day early for the start of the race, but not too early to start partying. Brett had just flown in from Michigan, only arriving an hour before us. He was already popping tops with his buddy Jim, who had made the drive down from Utah.

Jim owns Dual Sport Utah, a tour company that specializes in taking riders out into the legendary single-track of the slick rock desert that Moab is known for. That sounds like one of those jobs that you should pay to work at!

We registered with the folks at the Red Bull Media Tent, and started toasting cold ones with the rest of the riders who were mingling around the pits. Friday was going to be a qualifying day, so tonight was just laid back and relaxed, just the way we like it.

Surprisingly the weather wasn’t too bad. A light jacket and a knit hat, and we were very comfortable. Nothing like the friends and family who were dealing with ice storms and snow back home in Michigan. "Some times you just need a good road trip to break the winter blues" was what Brett was telling us.

I was surprised to see many of the world’s best riders mingling around in the pits. Riders like David Knight who had won the Last Man Standing Race for the past two years in a row and Polish newcomer Taddy Blazusiak from Krakow, Poland who was just mingling around in the pits talking with his fans and fellow racers.

The scene here in Bulcher wasn’t like most Pit areas that are highly secured and impossible to get an autograph or a photo of your favorite rider. The Last Man Standing Race is more about letting the fans rub elbows with their heroes and talk face to face with some of the best riders in the world.

We got a chance to talk with Steve Christini, owner of Christini Motorcycles about his awesome two-wheel drive bikes that many of the riders were going to be racing this weekend. Talk about a sweet set up to have for a knarly track like this.

While talking with Steve, he mentioned that he had just finished the design for KTM and had Geoff Aaron, ten-time national trials champion racing on one of his two-wheel drive beauties. He also showed us one of the prototype KTM’s that he said the company was taking back to their laboratories to test out. This might be an option on a stock KTM in a season or two.

For now, you’ll have to send your bike to Christini if you want it modified to be two-wheel drive. I think he told us the kit only cost a few grand once you mail the frame and forks to him. Not bad, and it’ll guarantee to turn every head at the local track. We’d have to see if having both wheels pulling you up the hill makes that big of a difference during the next few days of racing.

The rest of the night was spent knocking back cold ones with riders, racers and the pit crews in the Red Bull Hospitality tent where we watched last years race on the plasma screen they had set up. Red Bull knows how to take care of you!

Friday, the Qualifying Begins

Waking up a bit groggy from last night’s festivities, I couldn’t believe how many bikes I could hear revving up in the staging area. With a beautiful day weather wise ahead of us, (Texas would go on to break record highs today with the temperatures reaching into the high 80's) we couldn't ask for a nicer day to be sitting out in the tall grass watching some great motocross.

The property the race is held on is right on the Red River, the same one where John Wayne filmed the famous 1948 movie which is known as one of his best films. So needless to say, the rolling vistas and surrounding scenery was just beautiful.

Red Bull lived up to their title of putting together a fantastic course that would not only challenge the riders, but allow the spectators to get right up close to the action.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was only the qualifying portion of the race. I couldn't imagine when the riders would be going at it with all 100 of them fighting it out on the course together.

During qualifying, they were running a rider through the course every 30 seconds, so it gave us a second to catch our breath and focus through the lens with some thinking behind the images. I can only imagine tomorrow when all 100 of them will be flying at us at the same time!

We spent the day riding our motorcycle around the 3000 acre ranch scouting out the different sections of the track. I was surprised at how excited Cindy was and could tell her excitement was building each time she would see a new section of the course. This was going to be one amazing race tomorrow.

After a great day of photographing the racers, we all headed down to the Red Bull tent for some libations. They had a DJ spinning tunes and a bunch of the racers were mingling with the photographers and other press people who were just hanging out. We filled our bellies with some fantastic Texas BBQ from a local restaurant, Rudy's BBQ, while talking about what we felt would be the hardest section for the racers tomorrow.

Would it be the 3 story drop off? The hill climbs that were challenging enough for us to walk up, or the boulder sections that looked like they could eat a rider up and ask for more? I had never seen a track like this before and couldn’t imagine how the riders were going to tackle many of the sections.

Of course by the end of the night, my wife was grabbing David Knight's butt who had now become quite acquainted with us. We were all swapping stories and I wish I could remember some of them, but to be honest, I think my Red Bull and Vodka drinks were mixed too strong, as I can’t seem to remember most of the evening.

I do remember Cindy telling me to come feel how tight his buttocks were which I snapped back with something along the lines of "Cindy, I'm not going to come over and feel this guys butt, I don't care who he is!"

At one point, Cindy had her arms around Taddy and David at the same time and just as I went to snap a picture, she grabbed both their butts at the moment I snapped the picture sending them jumping into the air. Something tells me she had drank too many cans of liquid energy and the buzz was going to her head. Either that, or the amount of testosterone from all the amazing riders was just getting her too excited

Saturday and the Last Man Standing

We woke to hearing the lock on our door being unlocked, which was a strange sound. Utah Jim opened up the door and said, "Hey, you guys left your keys in the lock on the door!?! Get Up - Coffee's ready!"

Now I don't even think the door was locked in the first place, so I have no idea why I would have used the keys to come inside, but since neither of us remembered leaving the hospitality tent, we had no idea why the keys had been used, or why they were left in the door all night?

Either way, the riders meeting was starting, and we needed to get our groogy heads out of bed to figure out how the race was going to be run today. Those record highs and beautiful blue Texas skies were long gone, and a blanket of fog was covering the Red River countryside. Some nasty weather had blown in and looked like it was going to make the course that much harder for the big race today.

The cool morning air was waking me up fast, and that first Red Bull was already starting to surge through my veins. The race was being pushed back to 11am to see if the fog would lift, so we had enough time to clean the images off the cards from yesterday and get everything charged up for today's events. That and try to lay back down for a few to see if the Ibuprofen would take care of my pounding headache.

The start of the race was enough to tell me that this was going to be a wild day. The rodeo section was like something out of a horror movie, and I was just amazed that anyone was able to make it over some of the obstacles they had in front of them.

In the first 1/4 mile, I saw numerous riders get thrown from their bikes, get trampled by other riders who were flying past, all while showing some of the best skill I've ever seen displayed on a motorcycle. When we were moving to the next area on the track, Cindy said it was hard for her to take pictures, she was just too caught up in all the action going on.
The first spot we got to was a section called Joshua Tree. This obstacle was a giant hill that was very steep with a big vertical section right at the top. If the riders could make it up and over the vertical section, they had two different narrow rock sections they had to overcome before they could get down the backside.

The first few riders made it look like a piece of cake. These were also the top riders in the world. When the rest of the pack caught up, this is when you realized how hard of a climb this section was. Now remember that this is an invitational race only, so anyone riding in the event is highly talented, but some made it look like it was their first time riding a motorcycle.

One of the rules of the race is the riders can have no outside help, riders can help riders, but none of the course officials can help them get their bikes up the hill. Numerous times would a rider make it right to the top, fall, and have to go all the way back down to try it one more time. Some riders would come flying up the hill with the throttle pinned, hit the vertical section and get thrown from their bikes.

This happened one time and the out of control motorcycle flew over the fence almost landing on a group of photographers lining the hill. This is also when Jim and Cindy had another bike come flying out of control straight at them. Both went running down the hill with the bike hot on their heels. Luckily for me, I was able to get out of the way without falling, but other photographers werent so lucky. This isn’t what you want to have hit you when you have a $5000 camera in your hand!

From Joshua Tree, the course only got harder. Ever time you thought you had seen the worst of it, we'd ride up to a new section and just drop our jaw when someone would point out the route they were going to ride. Each section only got harder and I can imagine how hard it must have been for the riders getting more and more tired as the miles racked up.

Another thing that really impressed me was the one female riding in the race, and she road better than many of the men!

The one rule was, once the first place rider crossed the finish line during the day time race, the rest of the riders had 1 hour to make it across the finish line to move up to the night time race. Just to put in perspective how utterly grueling of a course this Last Man Standing race is, only 3 riders were going to be in the night time event. Taddy had finished first in the daytime race, while David Knight was only a few minutes behind him after getting lost in the woods.

Ten-time national trials champion Geoff Aaron, from Bailey, Colorado, was the only other rider to finish both 40-mile laps at the Red River Motorcycle Trails course on the Texas/Oklahoma border. Talk about separating the men from the boys.

While we had a break between races, we grabbed a bite to eat and charged up the batteries in the cameras, washing it all down with a few more Red Bulls. Then at 5pm, we heard the civil war cannon fire to signal the start of the night time race. The top 3 riders in the world were at it again.

Riding into the Night

Of the 100 starters, only Knight and Aaron joined Blazusiak in blasting off the starting line for the night race, meaning 97 riders failed to finish the first lap within one hour of the young Polish rider.

It was wild to see more than 2,500 spectators, making it the highest-attended sporting event in the history of Bulcher screaming for their favorite riders when they would come into the technical sections. This race would surely be one to go down in the history books.

We kept hearing over the radios that Taddy and Knight were battling it out for first place and had swapped the lead a few different times. Aaron was hot on their heals and his trials background would help to close that gap in the really rough sections.

Then word came across the radio that Knight had pulled off the course saying he couldn't finish. Apparently he had been battling a nasty cold for the last few days, and the dehydration from the days event had caught up to him. He was vomiting and the course officials were trying to put fluids into him which didn't seem to be staying down.

At the finish line, we sat waiting for Blazusiak to come riding in with the crowd swelling and getting worked up on the sponsors energy drink. When someone yelled, "I can see his head light!" You could hear the roar from the crowd echo over the fields.

With a twist of the throttle, Taddy pulled up to the last obstacle that stood between him and that finish line, a wall of boulders 25 feet tall. In true motocross fashion, he launched right up throwing a roster-tail of red Texas dirt into the roaring crowd. And with that finish, David Knight had been dethroned and a new Last Man Standing King had been crowned.

After Knight dropped out, Geoff Aaron persevered and crossed the finish line with a time of 4:09:02 - 31 minutes behind Blazusiak and the only other rider to finish the race. It should be noted that Geoff was also riding one of Steve Christini’s two-wheel drive KTM’s. Something tells me that next year, you’ll see many more of these on the top riders.

The rest of the night was spent in the Red Bull tent where all the riders were trying to ease those sore muscles from the weekend of punishment. I'm sure you can use your imagination as to the debauchery that followed.

Geoff Aaron and Steve Christini celebrating at the Finish Line
 

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