As you can see from the photos, this weekend gassed me. First the B race and some serious racing for sure and then the PF race, which is when this pic was taken. I had just come off one of the first laps having really put the hammer down. As you can see, neither me or Jeremiah were looking ready to hit it again. The PF race was like riding hard intervals in front of a crowd. Fun stuff. In the end, I made too many riding mistakes and it cost our team. Most of my mistakes involved the creek crossing. I could never pick the right line and as a result, I often dabbed or in the case of one crossing, crashed on the far bank of the creek. On the time I crashed, I was unlucky enough to snag my necklace around my handlebars and since I had one arm pinned under the bike, it was a little awkward getting up. That crash left me with some nice bruises on my legs. However, on my second to last lap our team was about to get put a lap down by the Ploch-Cash powerhouse. As we took our hand-off's Carrie was about 3 bike lengths behind me. Carrie and I had a good race together in the B race and I was going to give it everything to keep her from passing me. I was mostly successful until we were about to pop in the start/finish area wherein I hit a tree with my right shoulder while flying along pretty well. It certainly got my attention (as well as the attention of the spectators and even Carrie.) Stunned and with my right arm hanging, I made it to my teammate and evaluated another lap. I did finish, but it was only because I had one lap to go. I felt bad for my teammate Rob Oellerman. We certainly could have finished closer to the top, but it was fun racing with him nonetheless.
During the B race, we had a train of 6 in the first chase group which included two of my teammates, Kent Jones & Mark Hasler, racing with Carrie Cash, Todd Holtman, and another rider. We were putting down some serious efforts hoping to catch a glimpse of the lead group of 4, but it never materialized. It was okay for us, as we had a teammate in the lead group, Zak Hafner, but he was up against some serious competition in the form of John Peiffer, Jeff Powell, and Devin Clark. Those guys were thrashing each other with Devin, John, Zak, and Jeff going 1-2-3-4, respectively.
Here I am after my teammates broke free of the train before the creek crossing to get away and I'm waiting to get through traffic and bridge up to Todd Holtman. Carrie Cash is so pro, she offered so much encouragement to people during the race. I really enjoyed the competition with her during the race. (Little did I know one, Casey Ryback was lurking in the pack as well.)
I made the bridge up to Todd, but in the end he had too much for me to deal with and he beat me out. He's a strong dude that will be more competition for the Sport racers next year.
In the end, I finished 8th out of 29 racers and that was a solid effort. Big thanks to my teammates and to Pfoodman for putting the series together! Well done and look forward to next year!!!
1 comment:
Congratulations on the good finish!
Post a Comment