Belly Acre Enduro

[Hilz129]

Anyone here ever enter or ride the infamous Belly Acre Enduro? They used to be held near Braggs Oklahoma on some very rugged land connected to Fort Gruber. I went twice and rode it once. The first time it was snowed out due to a Oklahoma style blizzard. My riding friends and I spent the night on the floor of the Café in Braggs. The second time I rode the snow make-up event. I think I pushed my bike most of the 17.5 miles I managed to complete. I have never seen mud so deep and hills so gnarly. I think they held a national enduro there once in the mid-70's.  David

[slvrbrdfxr]

Hi David,
Welcome to POG. I have ridden down at Gruber quite a few times but didn't move to Tulsa until 1986 and so don't have any first hand knowledge of this particular enduro. I did however send a link to your post to a few of my fellow Tulsa Trail Rider members who had the following to say.
Dave McCullough

Jerry Atchison writes:
Yes, I rode it several times in the 70's.


It was advertised as a national Enduro once, but it never was.


In the early 70's the only enduro's around here were the John Zink Ranch and the Belly Acre.


Terry Canarsa put this event on, mostly by himself. It was a tough event in those days; the bikes were not very good then and this event was always in the dead of winter. Always had its share of snow, ice, deep water, and muddy hills.


Bob Stiles writes:
That was held at good old Gruber that we are familiar with which was a 1600 acre riding area that included land to the north and the south of the current remaining 400 acre riding area. Terry Canarsa of Ft Yamaha in Muskogee was the last promoter. He left with the entry money before the event was over and there were no awards that I recall. That was the only one I rode and only make about 10 mi before flatting out on an IT425.

[Hilz129]

slvrbrdfxr, Thanks for forwarding the message to the Tulsa enduro crowd. I grew up in Bartlesville Oklahoma and rode many times at the storied Zink Ranch including enduros, hare scrambles, and the grueling JZ150.I live in NC now, but I've ridden all of the ISDTRR's at Zink's. I plan on being at this years event as well.

With regard to the Belly Acre, I learned my lesson. It made for some incredible stories, but that's about it. It was more of a torture test than a true enduro. My biggest claim is that I survived.

David

[slvrbrdfxr]

Hi David,
Glad to hear you are planning to ride the 2014 ISDT RR out at Zink this fall. I'm the event chairman again this year and am plugging along on the planning and hope to have the info flyer and entry form posted online sometime soon. Got a couple more replies from the TTR guys about the Belly Acre which I posted below. Sure sounds like the promoter had it named right !!
Dave McCullough

Vern Street writes:
Yeah I rode it a couple of times.  Won it once I think.  It was mainly promotion and not much of an enduro. He had big bottlenecks and if you didn't have an early number you couldn't get thru. I had an early number and managed to get thru.  Terry Carnarsa was quite a guy.  Advertised it as a national enduro and had like 700 entries from several states showed up.  They were not impressed.

I rode the first loop and the mileage was off by six miles and I asked him about it, and he replied "close enough".

 
Earl Schnell writes:
Yes I too rode this event a couple of times and it was always pretty difficult as it was usually wet and muddy. The northern end of Gruber had two areas that were infamous. They were called "A** Hole Crack" and "The Shaft". They were usually at the early part of the event and where most people Dnf'd. The last time I rode it was on a 400 Husky and I was the second person to barely make it out of the "The Shaft" starting around minute 30. I was very tired when I got out of there. There were people stuck everywhere and the two stroke smoke cloud was very thick.  One of my early riding buddies, Jimmy Burt, was on minute one(He was obviously smarter than me) at this event and was the first rider out of "The Shaft" so you can do the math to see how many poor folks were stuck in the bottoms. I have a picture of me on the starting line with my open face helmet, overalls and lineman boots. Great memories!

[Hilz129]

Amazing memories of what was probably the worst off road motorcycle event I ever participated in. Both of my Bartlesville dirt bike mentors, Bobby Derrick and Tuck Archer, tried to warn us about the event. Unfortunately, we were young and too inexperienced to know better. I can still remember the signs on the two "Hills" mentioned by Earl Schnell. They looked as though they had been painted by Jethro Bodine.Just for the record, I made it up both. It took hours of pushing and spectator help!

In between the start and the first check they also had random hole punch checks to keep people from cutting the "course". Hole punchers were dangling from poorly marked tree limbs on beaded chains. You were supposed to punch your own card and motor on. At one of these checks there was nothing left but an empty chain. At that point I knew all was lost.

If Vern Street won it once, I am very, very impressed!

David

[Hilz129]

slvrbrdfxr, Thanks for forwarding the message to the Tulsa enduro crowd. I grew up in Bartlesville Oklahoma and rode many times at the storied Zink Ranch including enduros, hare scrambles, and the grueling JZ150.I live in NC now, but I've ridden all of the ISDTRR's at Zink's. I plan on being at this years event as well.

With regard to the Belly Acre, I learned my lesson. It made for some incredible stories, but that's about it. It was more of a torture test than a true enduro. My biggest claim is that I survived.

David

[slvrbrdfxr]

Hi David,
Glad to hear you are planning to ride the 2014 ISDT RR out at Zink this fall. I'm the event chairman again this year and am plugging along on the planning and hope to have the info flyer and entry form posted online sometime soon. Got a couple more replies from the TTR guys about the Belly Acre which I posted below. Sure sounds like the promoter had it named right !!
Dave McCullough

Vern Street writes:
Yeah I rode it a couple of times.  Won it once I think.  It was mainly promotion and not much of an enduro. He had big bottlenecks and if you didn't have an early number you couldn't get thru. I had an early number and managed to get thru.  Terry Carnarsa was quite a guy.  Advertised it as a national enduro and had like 700 entries from several states showed up.  They were not impressed.

I rode the first loop and the mileage was off by six miles and I asked him about it, and he replied "close enough".

 
Earl Schnell writes:
Yes I too rode this event a couple of times and it was always pretty difficult as it was usually wet and muddy. The northern end of Gruber had two areas that were infamous. They were called "A** Hole Crack" and "The Shaft". They were usually at the early part of the event and where most people Dnf'd. The last time I rode it was on a 400 Husky and I was the second person to barely make it out of the "The Shaft" starting around minute 30. I was very tired when I got out of there. There were people stuck everywhere and the two stroke smoke cloud was very thick.  One of my early riding buddies, Jimmy Burt, was on minute one(He was obviously smarter than me) at this event and was the first rider out of "The Shaft" so you can do the math to see how many poor folks were stuck in the bottoms. I have a picture of me on the starting line with my open face helmet, overalls and lineman boots. Great memories!

[Hilz129]

Amazing memories of what was probably the worst off road motorcycle event I ever participated in. Both of my Bartlesville dirt bike mentors, Bobby Derrick and Tuck Archer, tried to warn us about the event. Unfortunately, we were young and too inexperienced to know better. I can still remember the signs on the two "Hills" mentioned by Earl Schnell. They looked as though they had been painted by Jethro Bodine.Just for the record, I made it up both. It took hours of pushing and spectator help!

In between the start and the first check they also had random hole punch checks to keep people from cutting the "course". Hole punchers were dangling from poorly marked tree limbs on beaded chains. You were supposed to punch your own card and motor on. At one of these checks there was nothing left but an empty chain. At that point I knew all was lost.

If Vern Street won it once, I am very, very impressed!

David