Clark Brothers Racing: 24 Hours of Great Glen

Déjà Vu? So there we were around 9 a.m. at Great Glen Trails on Friday Morning, waiting in line behind the same exact vehicles as last year. Despite the glorious forecast that once portrayed sunny blue skies, it was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock, just the same as last year. As soon as the campground opened, the parade of vehicles made their way over. With only a handful of them in front of us, we were hoping that none of them would take our little piece of land at the base of Mount Washington that we had hoped to call home for the next few days. Much to our surprise all those people in front of us were solo riders that were camping in a different location. We checked in and grabbed our little piece of paradise in the back forty. The rain held off for a little bit allowing us to start setting up camp. Once again it started pouring out so we all crawled in Kevin’s conversion van and watched movies on the flat screen in the comfort of dry reclining leather captains chairs. Finally Mother Nature decided to throw in the towel and turned the spigot off after dropping 3 inches of rain on us. The clouds blew over the mountains and Mr. Sun and his friend Blue Sky finally arrived at the event. We finished setting camp up and Kevin cooked us up some gourmet dinner. We chilled out with old and new friends with the campfire and tiki torches burning bright. This was the proverbial calm before the storm. We awoke to a beautiful Saturday Morning that was breezy, sunny, and 75 degrees. At 12 noon on Saturday the cannon fired and would not fire again until 12 noon Sunday. It was go time! Kyle and approximately 119 others ran around the pond and jumped on their bikes going over the first obstacle, the over-under bridge. This year the course ran mostly in reverse. This eliminated the traffic jam on the climb on the infamous Blue Berry Hill. The first mile was a breeze but the next few were nothing but a climb. After that the rest was just a mix of gradual up and down fire road and single track until you crossed through the tunnel. It was then the torturous climb up Blue Berry Hill to the cabin and up the Aqueduct Loop and onto some fresh greasy off camber single track. Once through that it was back down, through the tunnel, under the over-under bridge, yet another unforgiving switch back climb, down the stairs, and around the pond or over the floating pontoon bridge where you took the chance of saving 30-40 seconds or falling into 13 feet deep water. Then into the tent where you slapped down your RFID card on the sensor and your next team member took the baton. Upon arrival back to basecamp we would shove a slice a pizza and a can of coke or moxie down our throat. We repeated this process for the next 24 hours. Although we had around two and a half hours between going out for one's next lap, it felt like only 5 minutes. Things were going well until the wee hours of the morning where one starts to become sleep deprived, delirious, and just a complete hot mess. The sun began to rise off in the distant which is always a sight of relief, but it’s not over yet, there is still about 6 or 7 hours left to go. As soon as sun starts to rise, the bag piper starts playing, the birds start chirping, it gets dramatically brighter. It is quite amazing to be out on a lap during this. From now until noon is where you just want to crawl into the fetal position onto a bed of nails in hopes that an out of control tanker truck piloted by Chuck Norris filled with gasoline and acid is coming straight your way. After Kyle and Anthony did their sixth rotation some bad news came their way, the other members of the team HAD ACTUALLY ben run over by Chuck Norris. So Kyle and Anthony went back out for their 7th laps. After his 7th lap Kyle got sucked into drinking Yuenglings with completion and went missing. After doing his 7th lap no one was there to relive him, Anthony contemplated whether he wanted to go back out or not. He sat down in the timing tent for a few minutes where he pondered life and then yelled '”YOLO” at the top of his lungs. After doing most the course in decent shape he hit the wall on Blue Berry Hill and ran out of gas. He ravaged for some actual blue berries but none were to be found. So he asked a spectator if he could have the rest of her half consumed Coke. She agreed. (True Story) With just a little bit of fuel left he managed to finish the last few miles. We then threw in the towel and opened the emergency cooler full of pints of Berkley Beer . After our first lap we were in second place and then fought between second and third. However the single speed, hula skirt, dress wearing team in front of us were pulling some fast times. We decided not to kill ourselves and backed down and tried to maintain 3rd place. We were just ahead of a Canadian team. We figured that an International throw down was more important anyways. At around 10:45 Sunday we were a few laps ahead of the Canadians and called it DONE. Although we say every year that we will never do this again we, some how end up back. We already can’t wait until next year! Here are some random pictures from the event.