Author: PCP Racing February 13, 2012

I’ll start off with this… it’s way to early to be racing on the dirt. But Budu always seems to have their races start early spring and this year was even earlier than normal. Despite the season the trails were in decent shape. No standing water but some of the mud hanging around was of the leg-sapping type.

Even though the ride with the team on Saturday was pretty low key I think I may have spent a little too much of my legs. My goal was to just survive and see how I did so I lined up mid-pack with the rest of the single speeders not expecting too much of myself. At the start the path quickly went from 6 across to room for only about 2 people and then down to single file as the path turned into single track. Per the usual, Brendan Connolly and Michael Brazel were straight off the front and lead the entire race. I had a bad start and hung back due to all the wet mud being thrown in my eyes (I’m not sure why you would have a fender on your bike in a race if its just gonna be twisted off to the side before we even reach the first corner).

Another typical BuDu thing is that all the courses they create are fun to ride but are nearly impossible to pass on without asking permission. Even though I was trying to take it easy I immediately got stuck in traffic and spent the first lap or so only moving up through the crowd when the people in front of me started making mistakes. Luckily it always happens it traffic. Finally I was through the bulk of the traffic but had one fast kid in front of me that was spending a little too much time hotdogging on every root, mound, and rock he could find. He was tailwhipping and jumping everything in site. He was a totally unpredictable Crazy Ivan that was just a little too much out of control. Finally one of his tail whips sent him off the trail and I was able to squeak by unscathed.

I spent the nest couple of laps trading places with Jesse Carbough. He had picked the wrong gear for all the steep climbing at Dash Point but was a dam fast downhiller. We didn’t know where we were in the pack but did our best to catch whoever was in front of us as well as stay on the wheels of the lead expert/open racers that came blasting through. I must have been slowing down because the last time Jesse took the lead in our little duo he just left me in the dust and there was nothing I could do to catch him. I spent the last lap in survival mode while constantly looking over my shoulder.

Just when I thought I was in the clear with only a couple of turns left in the race the Crazy Ivan came back from nowhere. He attempted a risky pass on a narrow straight and lowered his shoulder into me taking both of us out. I hopped back up as fast as I could with my shoe’s buckle busted off and hammered through to the finish. I ended up 5th when all the mud settled. Much better than I thought I was doing based on how I felt and how poor my start was.

I know that beating Connolly or Brazel is not likely in the cards for the spring races (or maybe ever) but my goal for the rest of the series is to stay as far away as I can from Crazy Ivan. The next race is in 3 weeks at Soaring Eagle and I am going to line up closer to the front–no more traffic for me. It’s my home turf, or close to it, so I should be able to do well.

Here are the deets from my GPS.

Zack