Vesrah Suzuki Offroad Team

4 March 08

Finished the opening round of the 2008 GNCC series. That was the hardest effort I have ever made. I’ve race mountain bikes, road bikes, road motorcycles and off-road motorcycles but that was the biggest expenditure of energy and mental focus I have every put forth. It took 10 minutes to get my boots off after the race. I stared at the menu where we stopped for dinner for 5 minutes before I realized I needed to make a decision. But back to the beginning of things. We checked out as much of the course as we could tolerate in the morning. We realized within the first 20 minutes of riding our bicycles on the loop it was going to all be the same. In end, it was 13 miles per lap of whoops, sand and palmetto roots. Another factor that cut our preview short was when we stumbled on a 13-year old rider that had fallen and had an injured shoulder. We helped him get back to the pit. His dad was useless and irresponsible. Finally our race time came. I managed to get a 5 place start into the first turn then rear-ended someone really hard in the second turn and went down. My bike stayed running but I lost a lot of ground. I figure I was 12th or so when I got going again but there is no way to know for sure. The heat and terrain made an impression on my right away. I was happy to follow for a while and learn the trail. On my second lap (of the five I completed) I went over the bars twice and got stuck in a mud hole one other time. That lap cost me a ton of time and a huge amount of energy. Late in that same lap I tipped over again and when I started to remount I noticed that there was fuel leaking from the line between the petcock and the carb. I limped through the rest of the lap and made repairs at the van. No idea how much fuel I lost or how long it had been leaking. On the next lap I gassed and did goggles. That pit stop felt like it took forever. I hope to get better at those stops soon. Because of all the hydration I was trying to do in the days and hours leading up to the race I had to pee on the 3rd lap. I tried a few times to relax and let it go but couldn’t quite relax enough before my attention would be stolen away by something demanding on the trail. Then I was final able to force it out. It was warm and filled my boots. I didn’t care. That’s what the carwash is for. The pros caught me at the end of the 3rd lap. I was happy to see that they were struggling with the trail too. If I got lucky I could keep them in sight for more than a turn – they weren’t going 2x as fast as me like they usually are. On the last lap I felt empty. I was thirsty (although I had taken on 75oz of fluids and tried hard to hydrate before the race) and I was tired. My arms and hands were fatigued but still working. My hands didn’t blister much at all. My low back was starting to seize up and a headache started to come on. I had short sections in the race that I was proud of. Good lines, looking up the trail most of the time and I only made a few costly mistakes. For this being the most difficult course in the series, and I had little to no ride time in, I did just fine. I was 12 minutes off the winner of my class, 98th overall and 6th in class. The numbers don’t look so good here on paper I’m good with them.