Mud Running in the Pac NW, almost over

[Big Mac]

Check out the mud running we occasionally race in during our Pacific NW vintage winter series: http://www.siegecraftnw.com/VDR.htm  This from last Saturday, when we got a deluge that started just the night before and continued through race day. Old bikes, old guys, a very cool old-school track and good old toss-the-goggles and hold-on racing. There was even an unplanned mud hole that looked innocent enough, but brought racers to a standstill as it swallowed bikes.
http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventorder?photo=02H1011V050006&start=0&album=0&adjust=-1

Regretfully, it's near the end for Woodland MX, the home track for Vintage Dirt Racing NW and birthplace (re-birth?) of vintage racing in the OR-WA area. It's slated to close and go under the tractor blades for housing development after our next and last race later this month. The owners/track operators are older and need to sell, and even with several of us brainstorming for all we were worth over the past 2 years on how we might buy the property and save it, the development value is just too high to make it financially feasible to run it as a track.

The real shame is the loss of the history and character of the place, not to mention the dirt...it opened in 1967, I'm told, as a scrambles and flat track, and has been in operation ever since. Pretty sure most of the buildings and improvements are the originals, even an old-school starting gate that each rider has to re-set themselves after each moto leaves. And the volcanic river bottom sandy soil makes this the only track for miles that offers tractable winter riding while the rest of our world is slick gumbo.

It's been the perfect setting to take out the vintage bike and feel like you really stepped back 30 years in time for just a day of racing. I've never experienced another track that captures it, and wish all vintage enthusiasts had a chance to visit there and race at least once. Woodland MX will be sorely missed, even the mud races !!