I was talking with Steve Hatch the other day about getting ready for the ISDE. We were talking about humorous Six Days stories and he sent me this one about tire problems which I can totally relate to! Here's what he had to say:
Steve leads the pack on his RMX 250 in a dusty ISDE, much like we anticipate in Portugal.
I finished the first day and came into the parc ferme for the 10 minute work period. I was focused and in a hurry to try to change the rear tire of my muddy Suzuki RMX 250. I grabbed the wheel off the bike and went to work wrestling the mousse tube. I did it in a record time for me (about 3 minutes) and was excited to get it back onto my bike. I was working at getting the wheel back into the swing arm and the chain on when I kept hearing my Mom yelling from the crowd.
"Steve" she yelled, I was thinking couldn't this wait until after my 10 minute work period because I am a little pushed for time… I finally looked up into the crowd to see what my Mom was yelling about and she said, "Steve you are putting the rear wheel on the wrong bike!"
Wow, in my hurry and with all the mud I couldn't tell the difference between my RMX and the one on the stand next to it (it was Scott Drafts RMX, who was also on the Junior Trophy Team). I was thinking why didn't I listen to what my Mom was yelling about earlier…
Pretty funny story and one that turned out ok as I had plenty of time, but very funny that I was so enthralled with changing the tire correctly I didn't really look at what bike I was putting it on.
Check out Steve's website at
www.stevehatchracing.com.
