The weather warnings started coming in for Orofino, Idaho suitably on Friday the 13th, 12:00 noon Pacific Standard Time.  The most impressive warning was the tornado watch for the area; mental images of racers being plucked from the endurocross track by funnel clouds flooded my mind.  The secondary warnings included a heavy rainfall warning matched with extremely strong winds.  With this in mind, we decided that it was only appropriate to load up Little Red Forest Creature (L.R.F.C.), my Gas Gas 250, and begin the 10 hour trip down to Orofino.  We hit the road shortly after work around 6:30 p.m.  Stopping in Trail Friday night had us on the road at 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning.  Thanks to Kim and David Shannon for driving that morning, I slept almost until we arrived around 10:30 a.m.  So much for tornados and monsoon rains, it was 30+ degrees Celsius and a tad hot compared to the snow riding we have been accustomed to at home!  Practice started at 12:00 noon and despite a small superman incident on L.R.F.C. over some tractor tires, I felt confident for the qualifying event.  I entered the women’s class and the amateur 250cc class and qualified in both: 1st place in the women’s and 3rd place in the men’s amateur 250cc.  The main event (night show) started at 6:00 pm under cloudy tornado-less skies.  I won the women’s main event and had a great ride.  It was amazing to hear all of the Orofino fans (an estimated 3,000) cheering for us girls!  Against the boys I got up to a 3rd place tie during the event, and finished in a respectable 5th place.  It was a blast signing autographs after the race for all the kids (and some adults); the guys in Orofino sure know how to please a crowd.  Even though the actual Orofino motorcycle club wasn’t involved this year, the event was a huge success, and probably my favourite Orofino event to date!  I can’t wait to head back next year hopefully with a bigger contingency of Canadian riders!  Thanks a bunch to Gas Gas Pacific for their 2011 Gas Gas 250 which was a great endurocross machine!!!!  And a big thanks to everyone else who helped get me there: Jim Engle, Gnarly Parts & Accessories, Rekluse, Fasstco (flexx bars), Scorpion Racing, LTR Suspension, Valley Motosports, Limenine Graphics,  A Vicious Cycle and Steve Shannon Photography.

 I’m looking forward to seeing some of the ridiculous carnage photos in Inside Moto X & Off-road coming up from Orofino, you only had to watch about 30 seconds of the light weight amateur class to get your entire year’s quota of crashes!