Monday 3/3 – at the triton – practice day

I am actually posting this from the awards platform, at the race site.

Today was practice day. What a concept. It was really nice that they had set up another course for us to all ride on. After all, it is still winter where many of us live. It was pretty good. It was a decent little loop. In actuality, it was not so little. 6 laps took about 1 hour. That is actually on par with a harescrambles course at home. The loop was super super rough. In an hour, I was pretty worked, and decided not to push it. I didn’t know if I could WIN practice after all, so I took it easy and just stopped at an hour. I could not imagine riding more than that helping my race tomorrow.

So, I had the most unbelievable night of sleep last night. We got to bed pretty early. I woke up at 4 having to pee. I thought that would be it for me. Normally, when I get up at that time, I would be done. But, I fell back to sleep and slept until 6:45. Wow! I never do that. It was super. I know now what I am missing.

Scott took off this morning to go and get more water. We decided that we did not have enough to make it through the race period. So now, we have 8 gallons. You know, that two old guys drink a lot of water.

I worked on cleaning up after breakfast (oatmeal with fruit, of course), went down and introduced myself to the Pirelli guys. Barney is the guy at Pirelli with the tire levers, and he is cool. He filled me in on what is the right tire for the day and recommended pressure etc… And damn, that MT32 was incredible.

So, when Scott got back it was time to mount tires and work on bikes. We both had a bunch of prep work that we wanted to do. Jetting, brake pads etc…

 

Here we are working on bikes.

 

We went back later and met one of the bigwigs at Pirelli, named Josh. I missed his last name, sorry Josh. He filled us in on the contingency program they offer, and made sure we were set up. That was really cool.

We stopped by to try to say hi to each of the people that have helped us to get here. Shane Nalley at Suzuki, Gary at G2, the guys at GPR etc… We have met so many great people aready. People are super friendly at the GNCC . It already is starting to feel like family.

The new registration for the race is super cool. It goes fast and it works. Swipe your AMA card, run the bar code for your transponder under a wand and that is it. You are registered. They still put a bar code for back up on the left side of your helmet, but that is just in case something failed in the middle of the race and they had to go back to scanning your helmet. Even tech inspection is done with the transponder. You go to tech inspection to have them make sure your helmet has the bar code and to make sure that you have the correct stickers. But, when you go into the tent, your transponder registers that you passed through. So no more tags on the handlebars or anything. Sweet.

After we finished riding, we watched the pros practicing. That was impressive. Those guys are going at pro motocrosser speeds through the whoops. We each have our favorite for the day. I am going with Knight, Scott is going with Garret Edmiston. They were both very impressive in the whoops.

This is how we both looked after practice.

 

I think it is going to be a race of attrition tomorrow. It is so hard with the whoops and the palmetto roots. Guys with fitness are going to have the advantage. I think there will be a lot of motocrossers that go really hard and fast for an hour or so. The 3^rd hour will tell. Even in practice today, there where a lot of guys sitting on the side of the course halfway through practice.

So this is it. We are on tomorrow. My knee is good. A little stiff after riding today, but it will be fine for tomorrow. 1:30 we start and from there it is all about riding. No more prep and no more talking.

 

I am ready.

 

Joe