Athlete Blog: Cody Schafer

Hey everyone, it's been awhile since my last blog and to put it simply things have been going very well!  I was fortunate enough to win the Angelfire WEBE Race, as well as the A class overall at the Wyoming National Enduro, and the NMDRC Rattlesnake 100 near Espanola, New Mexico.  All of these wins had my confidence at a high coming into the 4th round of the WEBE Hare Scrambles series at the Pajarito Ski Resort in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

            I missed out on this round last year and after seeing the videos I knew I missed a great race.  I was so excited to go out for practice and see what was in store for me on this course.  Right from the start I knew this course was going to be a tough one.  There was loose rock scattered everywhere that I imagine would feel the same as riding through a field of baseballs!  You add that to constantly being off camber on a ski slope, and it made it extremely difficult to stay consistent and off the ground.  I did two laps around the course and then practiced the start to get familiar with a line in the long grass up to the first corner.

            Sunday morning I finished prepping my bike and put it on the starting line as soon as the C class race was over. I wanted to make sure I had the spot I had practiced so there was no hesitation as soon as the flag raised.  There were about 16 Pro’s on the line but I knew I was going to be the first one to the corner.  Eric Bailey lined up on my left setting up the drag race to the first corner.  When Brett threw the flag I got a great jump and was dead even with Eric the first 50 feet or so, then my good line in the grass paid off and I pulled several bike lengths on the rest of the field to the corner.  Everything was going according to plan and I was set to lead the pack into the woods.  Bailey had another plan however when he got underneath me and oh so gently moved me out of the way and took the lead.  I trailed him about halfway through the lap until we got to an open field and I tried to make a move for the lead.  Just as I was starting to get by I saw a huge rock in front of me and locked up the brakes to try and get slowed the best I could. I slammed into it and was thrown over the bars.  Thankfully I actually got off the bike pretty gracefully and picked it up and jumped back into the race in 4th place. 

            I have to thank Daniel Olona and Bryant Cope for letting me back by that first lap after I went down.  I flopped over another time at the end of the first lap and twisted my bars pretty bad. I took a second to straighten them since there was so much time left in the race.  After those two mistakes Bailey was no where in sight. I tried to ride smooth and not make anymore mistakes after my disasterous first lap.  Everytime coming through the scoring shoot I would see that Eric’s lead was getting larger and larger.  My goal was just to salvage 2nd place now but I had Eric Rhoten hunting me down quickly.  When Rhoten got within about ten seconds of me I was passing a lapper and as he tried to get out of the way he lost his balance and fell over taking me down with him.  I watched Eric ride by as I was picking my bike up.  I tried to stay with him for a little while but I couldn’t even come close to matching his pace.  The last hour of the race I did my best to simply stay off the ground and was largely unsuccessful at that.  I crashed more times then I could even keep track of!  Somehow I managed to finish 3rd.  The course was the most difficult one I have raced in a long time.  Everytime I would try to push I would hit something funny and end up on the ground.  I really enjoyed the challenge that exposed a weakness I needed to work on with my riding.

            Getting my butt kicked so bad was really eye opening to me!  I think I was a little overconfident coming into the weekend so getting destroyed really helped light that fire inside of me.  I can’t wait for the next WEBE to try and redeem myself. I really have to thank the people at Factory Backing for getting Kyle and myself new decals for our bikes.  I am sure people couldn’t believe it was actually my bike they were looking at! I would also like to thank MotoAdventure Kawasaki, Dango’s Damping, Race Tech, Fly, Dirt Tricks, IMS, FMF, Motorex, Hinson, DT1, Enduro Engineering, Leatt, Dunlop, A’ME Grips, Excel Rims, Protaper, Topar Racing, Acerbis, and VurbOffroad.  Thank you for reading!

            Check out this video of a little off-weekend entertainment on two wheels without a motor!