Muttco Mountain Motocross

April 28, 2005

By Virgil Knapp

The pack fires off the gate at Muttco Mountain. Cale Anderson is #548

Photo: Virgil Knapp

This past Sunday was not the greatest day for a motocross race. With a cold rain falling most of the previous night and the temperatures forecast in the single digits (even some snow was falling in many SWO locations) I’ll admit that standing out at the track shooting photos was one of the last things on my mind.

Thankfully, my good friend Cale Anderson—fresh off his “5 Minutes with” feature in Racer X Canada—was amped to get some saddle time in and he convinced me to tag along. So off I went to the only race I knew of that wasn’t cancelled for that day due to the weather.

Muttco Mountain is one of the regular tracks used by the Lakeshore Dirt Riders Club. Typically a club race is pretty low key but with the cancellation of the scheduled CMRC and CMX events that day (due to an apparent 6 inches of snow) there were actually a few fast cats who showed up determined to race that day.

As practice clicked off, things were pretty messy but thankfully “Muttco” is comprised of mostly sand so things improved as the bikes tore through the muddy top layer. After practice I put my money on (big surprise…) Cale to take the Expert class as well as the under 29 class. The only other rider I saw that looked quick enough to challenge Cale was CMRC regular Joseph Rose riding a KTM 250SX. However, there were a few fast locals in the mix as well. There was a kid on a KX250F that was railing the corners probably better then anybody.

As it turns out my predictions were pretty accurate. Cale holeshot every moto he entered and won 2 out of 3. Unfortunately Cale sat out the 4th moto of the day due to lack of energy. “ I can’t hang on anymore and I don’t want to go out and injure myself before the Nationals start,” said Cale. “I have nothing to prove here.”

It was his first time racing since 2001 and the 2:20+ minute lap times were taking their toll on his body. Joseph Rose kept #548 honest and beat him straight up in one moto. However, Rose had some bad luck of his own—apparently his foot peg broke off and he was forced to ride his brothers 80 in the last expert race. As you might guess, he didn’t fare so well on the mini bike but he absolutely rode the wheels off it while trying. He looked a bit gooney on the little bike but hey, he gave it a go and it contributed to the fun atmosphere at LDR.

All in all I was really glad I decided to drag my butt out of bed and go check out the racing. In fact, I suggested to a member of the LDR staff that they should try to get a CMRC race held there. There were all kinds of cool elevation changes and multiple lines that made for great racing and awesome spectator viewing. If I still rode I would have signed up for my LDR membership right then and there.

Joseph Rose rode well taking one moto win. A broken footpeg forced him to park the 250 and take a walk back in time and run the last expert race on a spare 80cc he had in the trailer.

Photo: Virgil Knapp