News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Chris Hodges has given up his bike for training Boomer.
Not many men would count themselves lucky to go flying off a motorcycle doing 45 miles per hour over a dirt cross-country course. Not many men would consider a ride on an AirLink helicopter and a massive medical bill the smile of good fortune.
Chris Hodges does.
The Sisters motocross racer's frightening wreck last November at China Hat, south of Bend, saved his life.
Hodges, 46, figured the November 16 race at China Hat would be his final amateur cross-country motocross race. He had a shelf full of trophies and a body filled with steel plates and screws to show for a couple of years of outstanding success and he figured it was time to step back and become a mentor to other racers and an activist for his beloved sport.
"I thought, 'I'm going to race one more time and do it 100 percent,'" he recalled. "I'm going to do it one more time and then quit."
There were about 40 racers in the event, which is probably the fastest in the statewide series of cross-country races sanctioned by the Oregon Motorcycle Riders Association (OMRA).
As usual, the hyper-competitive Hodges was tearing up the course, leading everyone but the pros when he hit a section of whoop-de-doos on his third time through the course. The whoops had been squared off by traffic and Hodges figured a rock had worked its way up through the dirt.
He thinks he hit the rock with his chain guard as he topped the whoops, doing somewhere around 45 to 50 miles per hour. The bike popped into the air and Hodges went with it.
"That was just a brutal crash," he said.
Hodges couldn't breathe and he was having trouble staying conscious, but somehow he rode out two miles to an aid station, where he collapsed.
"I think it's just that instinct," he said. "I'm hurt pretty bad; I'd better get some help."
Hodges is starting to have some vague memories of the AirLink helicopter flight that took him to St. Charles Medical Center, but his first clear memory is entering a CAT scan tube, asking where he was and what had happened to him.
After the scan, a doctor came in and told him that, aside from a banged up rib cage and "a $20,000 concussion," the accident hadn't done any serious damage.
That was the good news.
"He goes, 'we found a tumor on your right kidney,'" Hodges recalled.
At first, Hodges didn't believe it. He figured there was a bruise or something from the wreck. He couldn't have cancer. But visits to urologists in Bend and then in Portland confirmed the CAT scan results. He had a cancerous tumor on his right kidney and the organ had to come out.
Hodges was initially stunned by the news, but he soon realized he had been incredibly lucky.
His urologist explained that the tumor was about 2.5 centimeters in size and cancer had not metastasized anywhere else in the body. With surgery, Hodges could expect a normal life, without even having to deal with chemotherapy or radiation.
Without the CAT scan after the accident, the tumor would have surely grown and affected other organs. It would have laid like a hand grenade in the racer's lower back, unknown until symptoms showed up and he was in a world of trouble.
Hodges went into the hospital in Portland on December 22. He was in for five days and is now recovering at his home near Sisters.
"I thought, 'I'm in the hospital for Christmas, but I suppose it's the best Christmas present I could have got,'" he said.
The ordeal has already brought changes to Hodges, who is the first to acknowledge that he is extremely competitive and driven and that his nature has made his life colorful and rich, but also difficult.
Hodges grew up in Oklahoma racing bikes and bird hunting. He moved to Portland in the late '90s, where he founded a telecommunications company, Oretel. The hard-driving entrepreneur built up the company, but at a terrible personal price.
"Building Oretel was probably the most stressful thing I've ever done," he said.
Hodges found himself "grossly overweight" and on anxiety medication, working 14 to 16 hour days, six days a week.
"One day I rolled over and looked at my wife and said, 'I'm not going to live like this anymore.'"
Hodges sold Oretel and moved to Sisters in 2005.
"I've always loved this area so much and I've always been a country guy anyway," he said.
Also beckoning him to Sisters was 150 miles of single-track on Green Ridge, where he had trained as he kept his hand in motocross.
Hodges resolved to throw himself back into racing full-bore, knowing full well that he was out of shape and that he would have a tough time.
"I knew that I'd get my butt kicked and that it would piss me off," he said.
In 2005, Hodges "just got destroyed" in OMRA cross-country and Grand Prix competition.
In 2006, "I really started busting down."
Hodges raced in the 40-year-old class, which is considered the most competitive of the age-group amateur classes. In 2006, he took second in the 40-class cross-country standings, but he broke both his arms in a crash in the Tillamook Forest.
In 2007, he came back to win the championship. It cost him though. A bad wreck injured his shoulder and severed his left ACL.
Fiercely determined to prove himself, Hodges spent nine months from January of 2008 in grueling physical therapy followed by intense training on the motocross bike and on a mountain bike.
He was driven to come back and win again.
"I had to prove it to myself," he said, "that I'm not going to cower, that I'm going to get back on that horse."
On September 7, 2008, he saddled up for his first post-injury race in Goldendale, Washington.
"I was scared to death," he said. "I about threw up in my helmet."
But once the race was underway, Hodges was back in form. He battled for the lead and won his comeback race.
"These races are a minimum of two hours," he said. "They're brutal physically and mentally. I was so totally mentally and physically exhausted, I just pretty much collapsed."
Hodges had met his goal, proved himself to himself. Now he figured it was time to give back to the sport. He had been encouraged to become an officer of OMRA and he decided he'd do it. It ws time to slow it down.
After one more race.
Now, realizing that final race and wreck in November saved him from a painful death, Hodges is recognizing some changes in himself. He can take it easy now. He can be still and enjoy the moment in a way that he never could before. He and his wife, from whom he is separated, have grown closer again.
He's planning a trip on his Harley Davidson with his brother through Montana and up into Canada. He plans to enjoy sunrises and sunsets.
He's given up racing for sure, though when he says it it still sounds like he's trying to convince himself. He now wants to focus on his other passion: bird hunting. He's got a Vizsla pup who has the makings of a great bird dog.
He's got plenty to do and a second chance to do it. He's got a list:
"I'm going to give back to the sport and remodel my house and raise a bird dog."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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