Dirt Quake
Race Watch
FREEDOM NORACEBIKES RUN WHAT YOU BRUNC
THE VIEW FROM INSIDE THE PADDOCK
DIRT QUAKE
“If you're daft enough to race it, we're dumb enough to let you."
Gary Inman
Dirt Quake is nominally a British concept imported into the Pacific Northwest. The idea is to demystify dirt-track racing by opening it to all comers while promoting the sport at every level and to a crowd it’s not currently reaching.
The keystone of the event is the mantra: “If you’re daft enough to race it, we’re dumb enough to let you.” The classes are aimed squarely at roadbikes. Racebikes and off-road bikes can compete at dozens of events, so they’re pretty much excluded. The classes include: Inappropriate Road Bike, Chopper, Street Tracker, Lady, and Kitchen Sink, the last for square pegs that can’t be hammered even into these slack class formats. Snowmobile, you say? Come along. We’ll fit you in somewhere.
This is the second Dirt Quake to be promoted by the flat-track freaks at Sideburn magazine (of which I am one) and the Portland, Oregon-based moto-polymaths, See See Motorcycles. Both American Quakes have had Castle Rock’s AMA-sanctioned national track in Washington as their epicenter. For the 2015 edition, competitors traveled from New York, Denver, Los Angeles, and Canada and mixed with a healthy crowd.
Saturday saw the local club, the Mount St. Helens MC, run its own flat-track program. Northwest hotshots, including Andrew Luker, Andy DiBrino, and national number 11 Scott Baker, competed against club racers of all ages and most abilities.
A class of street trackers was added for the strong field of race-prepped Harley Sportsters, Street 750s, and Triumph Bonnevilles that had come for the next day’s racing. Supported riders from custom builders Roland Sands, The Speed Merchant, British Customs, Suicide Machine Company, and The Rusty Butcher battled on the 3/8-mile clay oval.
As soon as the racing finished after 11 p.m., 1,000 Hop Valley beers were handed out for free, and a punk cover band struck up in the open-air pits, forcing Dead Kennedys and Plastic Bertrand through an underpowered amp and overworked speakers. A mosh pit formed. A pull-start minibike appeared in the middle, somehow doing laps without hitting the slam-dancing crowd. Then a racing Harley Sportster appeared, desperate to do a burnout despite not having a front brake. The crowd helped him out.
When the band ran out of material, a local, whom everyone assumed was associated with the Mount St. Helens club (but had actually been disowned by them), rolled up in the water truck and started dousing down a minibike oval in the center of one of the campgrounds. The pit racing commenced after midnight.
It morphed, seamlessly, into 450s racing, then the Sportsters thundered up and promptly crashed out. A kicker ramp appeared, and dozens lied down to be jumped by a helmetless daredevil. Next— and I’m not making this up—a small pleasure cruiser boat magically materialized in the middle of the campsite.
ENTERTAINMENT: While The Rusty Butcher flew, Evel, El Polio Loco, and a wannabe Fonda patrolled.
When a Harley couldn’t tow it (and its to onboard drunks), a Japanese pickup weighed in. Then things got really messy. Several stars of TV and movie franchise Jackass were in attendance, and even they were shaking their heads. It felt historical, in a very small way. Stuff was happening that was hilarious but should not be repeated. Misty-eyed old-timers compared it to wild 1970s Sturgis rallies. There was a feeling everyone just about got away with it. Blue flashing lights signaled bedtime for most. After all, it was race day when the sun came up.
After a slow start, mercifully slow for many, practice and racing got under way around 1 p.m. For such a cuckoo collection of amateur racers, raw novices, have-a-go heroes, and terminally befuddled, the racing ran like clockwork. There were two practice sessions, one heat and a main for each class. The racing was surprisingly fast. The Harley Invitational and Street Tracker mains saw 400-pound modified cruisers entering corners on full lock and with their inside, high-mounted footpegs dragging. Of course, there were racers so slow they couldn’t catch a cold, but they were equally venerated.
The racing was paused for a dose of half-time entertainment. Racers, spectators, and anyone was invited to take part in a “style” contest, launching the wrong way over Castle Rock’s famous TT jump. And the crowd was invited to line the jump. It was like poking a bear with a stick. Hadn’t everyone pushed their luck enough? Clearly not. The winner was Mark Atkins,
The Rusty Butcher, a social media sensation who jumps a Sportster like it was a supercross bike.
His was the highest and longest jump. His throttle stuck open, he split the sunburned crowd, and he ended up with the paramedics. At least he won some $1,000 Fox shocks for his roadbike.
Then it was time for the mains. In the Inappropriate Roadbike class, the leader slid off and was run over by a KTM1190 Adventure ridden by a man dressed as a chicken. The chicken stayed on; the faller limped away. Other stuff happened, and it didn’t stop for 24 hours. If it was not a naked man riding a bike the length of a Cadillac, it was one of the SoCal Sportster crew riding through town with a topless trophy girl sitting backward on the tank.
No one really cares who won or lost. The majority of the racers experienced their first-ever motorcycle race as a competitorsomething they’re not going to forget. We know for a fact that people who have lost their competition virginity at a Dirt Quake have gone on to buy real racebikes and compete in flat track, bringing new blood into the sport. After all, every sport needs new people at the grassroots level, even if they come through a backdoor that they kicked in and tossed on a campfire.
