Race One…Loretta Lynn’s 2011

We woke up this morning to…wait for it…wait for it…you guessed it…rain. Of course we did, it is a GNCC weekend. That is almost guaranteed to be rain. Brian said today, I put it down to another Brianism, but in reality it was pretty true, “if someplace is having a drought, all they need to do is host a GNCC and invite me to come. Guaranteed to rain”. GRRRR… he’s right though.

So, we started out with the Knights Inn in Hurricane Mills. Now I’m trying not to be a prima Donna, but geez. I think I am done with shitty hotels. And let me tell you about shitty. Brian says that he has stayed in worse places. Maybe I have also, but damn… This is really bad. Dirty, smelly, old, paper thin walls, freezing. Ugh… Pretty much shit. I have decided that I am a hotel snob, and damn proud of it. I will not be staying in shit hotels anymore.

Last night we went to dinner at the Loretta Lynn cafe. She might be a good singer (I think that is probably debatable also), but I can tell you this – her cooking sucks. Wow, that was bad. Wow.

Loretta might be able to sing, but her cooking sucks

I think this stuff would make a good gift for Brian!

Elvis’s favorite recipe. I took a photo of it. It’s mine now.

Any manner of confederacy stuff can be had there.

In the end, just how bad that place was, kinda got us past it. trust me, it’s bad.

The race happened, pretty much on time. Surprise surprise. I love GNCC races, but I have to say, ” they pretty much never start on time”. This had a unique start. It went left right left and the straight across a river and up a rock infested hill side. The river was deep and cold.

I got a crap start. Surprise surprise. I am trying to add some drama here. Dead last, 15th in the first turn. As I sat down into that first turn, I realized that when I sat down during the turn – I broke my Camelbak hose. My entire contents of my Camelbak emptied in about 6 minutes into my pants and boots. I took one drink, but it was too early in the race. I wasn’t really ready yet. Nonetheless, the whole thing emptied out during the first minutes of the race. I was dry. It’s going to be a simple day. Ride until you cannot, and then limp home. That’s exactly what I did.

Look at that dirt! The whole MX track turned out to be just like that.

I rode hard anyway. I stopped twice to get a drink, change my gloves, change my googles. And it worked. I made it all the way up to 5th, but the no fluid thing eventually caught up to me and I bonked. On the last lap, I became a complete tourist. I went from 5th to 7th.

Oh well. Better than the 50%point.

Sunday is another day.

Brian at his first GNCC, before the carnage!