Hertfelder: Brown Pelican

I'm pleased over the amount of mail regarding the old-time
checkpoint story a few months back - I thought anyone who
remembered that stuff had, like me, one foot and a couple of
toes in the grave and spent most of their time writing letters to
newspapers condemning Presidential candidates. Wrong
again, Ed!

Apparently, younger DDS readers were amazed to learn that,
once upon a time, each enduro checkpoint was a two-stop
affair.

First stop was to pick up your time written on a slip of paper,
which they stuck in your mouth before you rode over to
someone else who recorded it along with your riding number
and initials. Before I got into enduros I believe riders actually
had to write their initials in themselves. Even with just one rider
every minute this could only add more confusion to the usual
atrocious handwriting on the score books. One thing I forgot to
mention was that this slip of paper was then rammed into the
upper left pocket of the surplus army field jacket we all wore at
the time.

After an enduro the scoring crew might look you up and ask for
the slip from, say, check 4, because the score keeper had
handwriting resembling chicken scratches because he was an
old bent-leg flat tracker who got the shakes whenever he
caught Castrol fumes up his nose. The requested slip of paper
would be in the jacket pocket all right, along with maybe twenty
or more others from enduros earlier in the year--or even from
LAST year.

What most of us did was just spill out a double handful of the
paper slips and let the scorekeepers figure it out for
themselves. Scorekeepers then, and now, are harried
individuals who have no idea how they got this thankless job,
and seem always in need of a sizable sidearm to keep the
competitors from outright rioting. There was two reasons for
riders to keep all these slips of paper. The possibility of
needing one to correct a scoring problem was one reason; the
other, and far more serious, was the danger of getting "caught
short" out on the trail where there is a great shortage of dry
toilet paper and a vast amount of poison ivy leaves. I'm pleased
that younger readers take an interest in the way things were
and I'm going to beat to death this thing I've started on enduro
scoring.

On those checkpoint slips of paper your time of arrival was
noted in minutes, emergency checks in minutes and seconds.
What a scoring hassle trying to figure out how early or late
riders were!!

Here's the problem, and it was a SEVERE problem: Emergency
checkpoint guy #1 writes a time on a small slip of paper,
12:03.27 for instance. This is shoved in between a sweating
rider's wet lips--maybe smeared with a little blood from a "wait
a minute" vine. Check guy #2 writes what he THINKS the
numbers are into a copy book he's holding under some Saran
Wrap because it's drizzling rain. Both of these fellows are
writing STANDING UP, and neither one is capable of readable
handwriting even if they were seated at a concrete desk and
hadn't had a coffee since yesterday. Possibility of error here?
Are bears Catholic?

It was the 'flip card' checkpoint that vastly increased scoring
accuracy and speed and making it possible to start more than
one rider every minute. And have you ever wondered who
developed that system?

Credit goes to New England's Dave Latham, a top-ranked rider
who saw it used in Europe and transferred it to NETRA enduros
and, because it was so damn PRACTICAL, it spread
nationwide very, very, quickly. The last time I saw Latham was
at the Eames Memorial ride when Dave, riding a BMW
opposed twin, passed me on an extremely rocky uphill. He had
to tilt the Beemer from side to side to keep his cylinders out of
the rocks and he never rode BETWEEN two high rocks. When
faced with this dilemma he simply rode his Beemer OVER the
highest rock. Dave actually managed a wave of greeting as he
passed; I would have waved back except I was afraid of dying
on a pile of raw tombstones.

When the East Coast Enduro Association clubs caught on to
the "flip card" checkpoint scoring, they had ready-made cards
at hand. They were using rider's score cards made from a
heavy white plastic; the proper size for flip cards and nearly
indestructible. Of course, none of the clubs used NEW cards
for their flip stands; they didn't have to because they had a shit
pot full of already used cards with writing, in indelible ink, on
one side only.

Just as a guess I'd say that the Delaware Enduro Riders made
up their 'flip cards' around 1966. I know this because in the
years I've worked a checkpoint for them I make it a point to
read the BACK of the old rider's cards, and I've seen names of
rider's who haven't ridden in years.

The last time I worked the so-called Sandy Lane check; staffed
with Meteor club members, I noted we were using cards issued
to Colin Pilkington, who moved to California in 1969, and Mel
Downs, who used to borrow my bike trailer occasionally.

Mel pops up at antique bike and car shows and I enjoy talking
to him very much but I'm amazed that he can talk for hours and
NEVER ONCE mention my bike trailer.

That he's had since 1971.