As luck would have it, the person I traded the bike with took really good care of it. It had a FMF and Pro Circuit pipe and silencer, and I would do different combinations. I liked the FMF pipe for the extra revs in the sand, but most of the time I used the Pro Circuit. I seemed to get a little more low-end with the FMF silencer, so kept that on there all the time. Other than that, I kept it fairly stock, did the regular maintenance frequently, and really got a lot of use out of it. And the “Can’t get it started” nightmares from the evil thumper were fading into repression.

I moved to B class and ended up getting my first ever, then two more, year-end awards with this bike. You have to go to quite a few races in District 23 to stay in the top ten, at least when finishing towards the back like I did at first, so I probably put 60 races or so on it. I’d race 2 classes about half the time, something I did only once “back in the day” (Chapters 8 and 9), because you needed 2 bikes. It seemed like I’d do best in my 2nd and 3rd motos of the day, something that didn’t lead to many top overall finishes.

Despite not being the fastest rider in my class, or even mid-pack really, with my trusty Toyota Tacoma and this workhorse, I excelled in showing up and starting and finishing both races. Finally through the attrition I had been expected to benefit from years earlier, I was able to ride to year-end glory, with a stirring series of 5th of 6 and 7th of 10 finishes. It was in the poorly attended 25+ B class that I got my first year-end award, plodding all the way up to 7th by the end of the 2001 season.

The next year, I turned 40, something many men get all bent out of shape about, but for a 39 year-old racer in the 25+ and 30+ classes, the chance to race the 40+ class looks like a welcome pool of easy pickings. Unfortunately, I seem to be on the cusp of a wave of fast old guys getting back into it, so that 40+ class looked tougher, and better attended, the closer I got to it.

Relatively speaking, I did better in 2002 and went to enough races to get another year-end award. I wasn’t going to go to as many races as the previous year, but mid-season, I was stricken with Points Fever, and started racing (starting and finishing of course) every race.

The streak was interrupted late in the summer when I went one race too many on a chain (stupid, stupid, stupid) and put a hole in the cases. The counter shaft “guard” ripped out, pretty much causing what it was supposed to prevent. I was wondering why I saw a lot of people riding without them.

This is when the 125 came into the picture (see next chapter). I finished out the last few races on it while the Honda got repaired. Going into 2003, I had both this bike and the 125 ready to ride, and the few-month overlap plan had somehow morphed into a 2-bike stable. I rode this one primarily the first half or so of 2003 and it held up well as always.

This bike outlasted the upstart 125, being sold late-summer of 2003, a deal brokered by a former 500c National qualifier who’ll I refer to only as T-man (not because anyone calls him that, but because it sounds cool). Last I heard, the bike is still being ridden regularly in the mountains, and the owner has continued the pattern of compulsive maintenance and cleaning set forth by the previous owners, and if possible, has surpassed both of us.