Local races

This past weekend was the first local D16 race that I could do this year. It was actually the 2nd race of the season here, but the first one fell on the Loretta’s GNCC race weekend.

I took the girls up to the UP with me to stay overnight in the camper (Ali, Hanna and Lisa our foreign exchange student who is part of the family now). It has been a long time since we have been camping, so I was really looking forward to it.

We did the normal camping things when we got there. Cooking dinner, walking around the campground, making a campfire, making smores, rushing inside the camper when it started raining etc… It was really fun. I am glad they came. Here are a few photos from the night.

The campsite

Ali and Hanna, being well… as normal.

starting to rain

going out in the rain

bored in the camper
Local racing and GNCC racing are a lot different. At a GNCC race there will be about 400+ racers on the course at once. Because of that, the course can only be so narrow. It needs to accommodate all of those rdiers on the course at once. At a local race, there might only be 60 or so racers on the line at once. Therefore, the course can be a lot more challenging from a technical standpoint. There were just 72 at this one. The course here was less than a 10 minute lap, and at a GNCC race the lap is closer to 30 minutes loop. At a GNCC race the race is 3 hours long, and here it is just 2 hours long.

It does not matter though, local races are just as hard fought as GNCC races. The start is frenzied, and the course is challenging. Damn it was fun.

Jim Blau got the start and I took 2 kicks to get it going. I was last going into the first turn, but made up 5 spots before we left the MX track. In the woods, I caught up to Rob and he was not going that fast, so I went right past him. After going pretty hard for a bit, I realized that he was completely gone behind me. I spent 2 laps in what I thought was 1st place (it was really 2nd, as Jim had checked out at the start). At about lap 3, I bobbled on a steep uphill with a bunch of mud at the bottom, and fell over. As I was getting restarted, I saw Rob go by and he was going hard. He put a minute or so on me, and I could not make that up. Rob ended up catching Jim and going through him, but I did not catch Jim. I ended up 3rd out of 13 riders.

It is really good to be racing at home. I have not done a local race since early Sept last year. Before I hurt my knee. I am not convinced that I am as fast as I was last year yet, but it feels good to race near the front of a race again.

The girls did take a couple of pictures though. Here they are.