Hello Arrows and Friends,

Well, it's the end of the week after and we've pretty much put the finishing touches (posting scores, awarding worker points, thanking Sponsors, etc....) on SAER's National Enduro. You all did it. Maybe you think that it could have gotten done without your efforts and maybe it would have but, each contribution brought the quality of the event up another notch. In the end, we put together a National that we can all be proud of.

Because I got to see most of the activity that surrounded the event, I want to give you all bit of that same view so that you can see what got done and, more importantly, the people who made contributions (as best as I can remember).

It all started with applying for the Sanction and getting awarded the spot on the 2008 schedule last fall. After that, with a bunch of consultations with Matt Stavish, and guidelines from Alan Randt at the NEPG (National Enduro Promoters Group), we started to assign tasks.

EARLY SIGNUP AND SCORING
Boy was I happy when John Otto volunteered for the Early Signup job. As it turned out, the toughest part was not handling all of the mail, it was trying to get everyone placed on a minute/row that they could live with. You should have seen all of the emails I had to forward to him with requests. John did a great job on this, as anyone who ran a Start Control could tell. We had 263 Riders and only went up to minute 54 (with 5 riders on a minute). 5 x 54 = 270 so only 7 slots were open! John also was the Duquette signup master and collected the scores and got them out to the organizations that needed them. I already gave John a personal pat on the back for his good work. By the way, John spent a bunch of hours doing trailwork on top of his other responsibilities.

SPONSORS and PROMOTIONS
Dave Anderson was the master of this effort. He put together the list of potential Sponsors and had Mike Pohl, Matt Stavish, Jack Bondus, me and himself making the phone calls. In case you missed it, the Sponsors that we roped in were shown on the bottom of the Poster. They were Klim, Decal Works, Rekluse, A.C.E.S. Flight Simulators (Mike P's business), Fredette Racing Products, Hinson and RaceFreex (the KTM dealer in Brainerd). GoFasters came in at the last minute and provided the GasGas test rides. Dave (with Andy Gunderson's help) was also responsible for the layout around the Store and Town Hall. Dave put together the Sponsor's gift certificates and figured out who to award them to. This was a big, long effort and Dave deserves a real pat on the back. Dave's wife, Mary, also helped organize things and was there at Enduro Signup and at the post-event cleanup to lend an appreciated helping hand.

THE POSTER
Matt Stavish's pals, Steve Podraza (printing) and Tom Cusciotta (design) and Matt went at this project right away and had it done before I knew what was going on. The Poster turned out great and we ended up using it for our T-Shirts and website. All this just to help (no money exchanged hands). I would say that this was over and above the call of duty and went a long way towards helping us look good.

T-SHIRTS and TROPHIES and PHOTOS
Mike Pohl stepped up and made himself the T-shirt guy. Although we had a pretty good idea of how many T-shirts we were going to give away, we had no idea how many folks would want to buy them as souveniers. He also made up some hoodies and sold a passle of those.

Greg Nelson did a great job on the trophies for both the MINI and the Enduro. He went out on the internet and found the needed graphics and put them together. Mark Krey did yeoman's duty by actually bringing the Trophies up and helping to hand them out.

Mike was also the official photographer for SAER and he dragged free lance dirtbike photographer, Mark Kariya, out into the woods so that he could get some good action shots. Dan Ferderer created a spectator access spot to the "log jump" where ALOT of photos were taken. You can see Mike's photos (and John Otto's) by going to our website.

NEW WEBMASTER
Mike Murphy gets a special mention for two reasons. The first is that he took on the duties of our Webmaster even as he was just starting his new job at Polaris Industries. In that capacity he got our site rockin' with information about the Enduro. It must have saved a million phone calls to me to have most everything anybody wanted to know about the Event on our website. The second is that, during the weeks leading up to the Event, every time I turned around he was there helping either one of the Section Leaders or he was helping me, whilst I was mileaging. All that and he is the MX Chair too. He put in a BUNCH of time on the event and it certainly made a big difference.

DUQUETTE
What can you say about how things went in town? It was so great to have Andy Gunderson be such a big part of the Event. He coordinated the town stuff, got and spread the fill on the exit trail, got and put up a ton of banners directing folks in Duquette and donated his personal mile of woods-trail for the GasGas test rides. Andy's parents, Curt and Julie, also helped in Duquette and were there wherever and whenever they could help. Quite a few of us even camped in the senior Gunderson's yard on event weekend, creating a gathering spot for SAER and relieving some of the parking pressure on the Campgrounds. These folks bent over backwards for us and it is greatly appreciated.

The Kerrick Fire and Rescue folks provided the EMT support again this year. Having a rescue helicopter parked on the course in the morning is always kind of cool. Kent Johnson and his crew are always a pleasure to work with and we're glad they're there.

The Kerrick Women's Softball Club provided the Sunday morning breakfast. They did a great job feeding the troops and left the kitchen in tip-top shape. I wish that I would have had a chance to sample their breakfast but, I was at the Gunderson's Bed and Breakfast (well la dee dah!). It looked good, though.

Let's not forget Kevin, the River Inn owner, who did his best to help by providing overflow parking (which did not get used). Hopefully, the Enduro gave his place a financial boost just before it burned!

MINI
Tim Kight and the crew did the usual, great job on the MINI. Deb Maki and Charlie Forrest Sr. set up the Saturday evening feed for the club. Dave Anderson was the guy who shmoozed Mike Lafferty, Russell Bobbitt and Cole Kirkpatrick into showing up and handing out trophies and meeting the kids. Those kids will never forget it (neither will I). It's too bad D23 doesn't give out a trophy for MINI of the year. Let's not forget Jessie Kight who did all of the signup work for the MINI and was a huge help to me, Mark,Dave A and Yune when it came to handing out the Enduro Trophies. Don't you think that she's photogenic?? Of course, I gotta throw out a big thanks to Mike Dahl again this year. He not only lets us use his land (and the neighbors) to hold and run the MINI. His place and his advice get alot of use from many of us in the weeks before, and sometimes after, the Enduro. He is super generous with his stuff and his time and we couldn't have as good an event as we do without him.

TRAILWORK
We had four Section Leaders this year. In order of Enduro appearance, they were Dan Ferderer, Ron Palm, Al Roscoe and Roy Fleming.

DAN's SECTION
Dan and his pal, Matt Stavish, were given the "beginners" Section (the one with all that wide, public trail in it). Well, they were't satified with just clearing and arrowing, they wanted to put in some new trail! It took a while to figure out what might be possible but, once they had an idea of where trail might go, they jumped on it like pirhana on a cow. They kind of overachieved on this one and it was a debate as to whether or not a section of trail should be included because it was routed through some wet spots. In the end, the conditions were so dry that we decided to run it for the Enduro and close it as a GIA trail. This is the same segment that had a log in it in the morning that turned into the now famous "log jump" in the afternoon. If you're counting, they added 2.3 miles of fresh singletrack to the event. If you're Matt, you would count it twice because it was used one way in the morning AND the other way in the afternoon. Dan and crew also got jerked around when Alan Randt showed up to preride the course. Dan and his crew had arrowed the course from the Sandpit on the Net Lake Road all of the way to the end of his section. As it turned out Alan and I decided to throw out that first 4.4 miles of combined ATV/motorcycle trail and just run the competitors up the Net Lake Road 1.2 miles to a different Start Control spot. They not only had it arrowed but they had also cut back all of those raspberry bushes on the singletrack on the north side of the Sandpit, an ugly job at best. That was alot of arrowing/de-arrowing and brushing on a segment of trail that ended up not being used for the Enduro. Sorry about that. These guys, with their enthusiasm and ideas, are a welcome addition to the club. Thanks for getting it done.

RON's SECTION
Ron and I did some scouting in the snow, looking to obsolete an old segment of snowmobile trail and a segment of logging road. What we found was a primo route through some pretty open woods that turned into some great singletrack. There were four water flowages through that woods that required the building of four bridges/boardwalks, most little but one 16 feet long. We also rebuilt the Cow Catcher bridge this year and put up some permanent signs to help you actually hit the bridge. Ron's section is now almost all singletrack. Ron had a good group of helpers with Jack Bondus being the guy who reported for duty the most frequently. Based on the positive reviews Ron got on his trails, I would just be piling on if I thanked him too much.

AL's SECTION
Al and his pal, Tim Blake, took a look at the condition of the Congo after this year's long, wet season and said, "this sucks"! Off they went exploring in the popples to see if they could find a dry reroute. They ended up replacing about 3/4 of the trail in the Congo even after I stopped them from replacing my favorite little, sidehill segment. There was more than one weekend where Al came up from Albert Lea by himself to git 'er done. That was kickin'. If you had a chance to use the Bearhunter trail last fall or this spring and summer, you would have seen that it was 1 mile of one mudhole after the other. Our DNR GUY, Joe Alberio, and his crew had helped us last fall with the "Big Bridge" project and had started on the Bearhunter renovation. They had to wait to finish the job this summer until things dried out sufficiently to move some dirt around. Well, Al and I were ASTOUNDED to see that trail go from mudhole city to totally dry in one week, 2 weeks before the Enduro.

ROY's SECTION
Everybody looks forward to Roy's section. His was run by the AA, A and B riders. Roy, Tim Kight and I (and Nan) ganged up to put new trail segments in his long Section. Roy's new stuff is on the north and south side of the woodchip parking lot up in WI. My new stuff is on the State Line Creek trail and in the Gandy Dancer Bypass trail. In total, Roy's Section got 3.7 miles of new trail. We put in 6 more bridges/boardwalks up in Roy's section (and 1 in Dan's Section) for a total of 12 construction projects in the Nemadji. That's alot of green treated. Talking things over with the WI, Douglas County trails guy, there is a good chance that we could turn the WI stuff into public trails that could be hooked up to the MN public trails. Wouldn't that be something if you could follow signs all of the way up and through there. Even SAER folks get lost up there. Don't forget that Roy is the Club Treasurer and our general, get-it-done guy. Thanks Roy for also arranging the rentals, supplying the Arrows, X's and W's and paying all the bills. All of that is alot harder than it sounds.

THE FIRST LADY
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the contributions of the First Lady of the Straight Arrows, Nanette Chenery. That girl was out there with me for scouting, trail clearing and helping with construction projects. Even in the bugs (a record crop of mosquitos with the usual black and deer flies) and rain, she was out there doing it. She was even there in the winter when we skiied out and snowshoed around to figure out one of the new trail alignments. Well, maybe that was more fun than anything but still, she was there and deserves a big thanks.

CHECK CREWS
I would never have imagined that we would have had 14 Checks, not including the Start in the Duquette Campground. It only worked because 4 Checks were used twice. The whole Check thing was kind of a mystery due to the Transponder Scoring System but, everyone just took their cues from Alan Randt and figured it out as they went. Three Straight Arrow emeritus guys (Ken King, Don Youngdahl & Mike Nothom) were good enough to take on Checks. They all wanted to do more riding than they got to do so, thanks for putting the Enduro first! It was good to see these key guys (former Enduro and MX Chairs) from the past come out to make it happen at our National. Once a Straight Arrow, always ...........

We even had a few SAER MX guys, Ross Thompson, Bill (I'm not Bob) Corcoran, Bob Chase, Taylor Currie and Tom Peterson come up to help and work checks. It's too bad it wasn't hot or rainy or that bug spray wasn't needed or they would have gotten the whole experience. Thanks you guys for being there when we needed you.

Non-club members, Dave and Yune Jonk and Larry Morrelli, volunteered their side-by-side ATVs to help haul check stuff and work those two Bearhunter Checks. You had to know that Yune would, once she got involved, not stop there. She was at the Trophy presentation and really helped to get things organized which took alot of the pressure off of me.

FINALLY
Thanks to all of the other club members and friends who volunteered their time to come up and work Checks, do trailwork and generally help out. It was truly a huge effort. After this, everything else is going to be easy. Here's the best list that I can come up with of the rest of the people that helped make our National Enduro a success: Duane and Sue Nienow, Trevor Anderson, Aaron Petty, Mrs Petty, Erin Laschinger, John Deluce, Rich McGrath, Quentin Blomberg, Nate Ferderer, Mark Nothom, Nick Nothom, Scott Haraldson, Darryl Ion, Mike Malloy, Doug Less, Bob Maki, Ken Teese (Sound Test Master), Jay Waalen, Jim Radtke, Carl Adams, Chris Gendron, Kent Goble (the shadow) and Jeff Terrio. If I missed you or your friend(s), you can kick me in the butt the next time you see me.

Ken Fastner
NATIONAL Enduro Trail Boss