We were off, and I was sleeping in the back of the van. I woke up when we were driving through some sand bumps. I knew the track was supposed to be sandy, so I thought we were close. It turns out that there isn't really an address to the track, so I actually just picked it out on the map on our gps. We went a little off course... We were almost getting stuck in some of the deepish sand. Uh oh! Luckily we got out of there and back onto some real roads. We got to the track at about 4:30 AM.
The morning was filled with observing how everything was run. Dead engine start. And then banzai for the rest of the time! Except for the checkpoint, of course.
My start was at 11:45 AM. I was all geared up, camelbak ready, gas to the brim. I was in the third start of the 11:45 race. 201-Open B. In front of me were AA and A.
Start, holeshot, go! I didn't even see anyone in my class for the whole race, except for when I was lapping people. In the second lap I fell over twice after getting past some A guys. That wasn't fun.. But I got back up, passed them, and kept chugging along.
I ended up falling a third time, as well. Up to the gas fill-up at about 50 minutes (which I had to do because I was running a stock tank), I hadn't found my camelbak tube. Oh boy. I found it later on, though. The last couple laps were pretty much hell. It's just sand bump after sand bump there. Before the last lap I came in at 1 hour 43 minutes. If I would've been just 2 minutes slower I would've finished!
So the last lap was filled with thoughts of finishing and battling the leader of the A class, who I caught up to. I passed him, felt dead, he passed me back. Going through the last section I caught up to him. We were side by side in the last turn! He ended up edging me out to the check point line. Yes, a check point line. All I wanted to do was go lay down at that point...
I couldn't lift my arms at all anymore at the end. The constant whoops had killed me. I felt almost as bad as when I had heat exhaustion last summer. These races are tough!
My 100% goggles were just awesome. Somehow I didn't even pull a tear-off. My AXO gear stayed strong, my AGV helmet kept my noggin safe from the trees, and my TZR tuned suspension worked awesome. A lot of my passes happened through the deep sand whoops sections.
My dad actually spent all last week rebuilding my bike with Tom Zont at his garage. Thanks guys! Like Tom said, it would've meant that I sucked if I didn't win with the totally rebuilt bike. Luckily I didn't suck. :D
So my experience at the Keithsburg hare scramble was really good up to the riding part! I need to work on my fitness some more.
Last week I jogged for 1.5 hours. I thought that meant that I could do this race fine. It's so different trying to push all the time in a race...
Later guys! -Greg
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