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Mother’s Day brought along with it my next race. I hoped for much better results then what Aztalan brought me two weeks ago. For this race, I brought along my parents, who have never been to a dirt bike race before. One of my sisters met us there as well. I did appreciate them cheering me on as I went by; I gave them a wave in return… sort of to let them know that I wasn’t taking the race all too seriously… I assume that they were nervous with the idea of me racing, based on previous injuries from motorcycles.

This race brought with it my first sound test. The race required that each bike be at or below 96 decibels. My 2000 KX250 has the stock silencer on it (which I had re-packed last summer), and I was pleased to find out that it rated at a relatively quiet 93 decibels. Another nice surprise was the hot chick working at the sign-up table

The track conditions were pretty sweet actually. It had rained some during the night & AM, leaving the track just a little wet & pretty much stopped any dust that would have been there… plus without any major mud. The trail turned out to be really good. It was an 8-mile loop that combined: tight single track, ATV-width trail, grass track, a moto track, a bunch of elevation changes & off-camber trails. Helping to make it challenging & technical was the countless softball sized rocks & tree roots.

About my race? Well that still didn’t go nearly as well as I hoped. I was really struggling, much more then I expected out of myself. Honestly, maybe I should be in the C class right now, but I have chosen to race the B class this year so that I can do the full length courses… this is to be able to ride longer, plus to challenge myself & this will only make me a better rider. The bottom line is that I just crashed way too many times. I became completely exhausted from picking my bike back up, kicking it over to restart it. I began riding slower & tighter… then with the slow pace I lost all flow that I might have had… so then I’m just bouncing off of everything… which is making me more tired & riding tighter yet. Kind of snowballed I suppose. One of my final crashes actually put me over the handlebars… my bike was sprawled out across the single track…. a couple of the faster guys that we about to lap me were held up waiting for me to get my shit out of the way… I hate that feeling of messing up somebody else’s race & being in the way… One of the guys yelled out, “Dude! Pick it up, pick it up!…” I had gone into the big hole that you were supposed to go around… my front end went straight into it & my bike just stopped. I went over the bars & had to pull my bike out of this washed out gully. I should just have went around it like everybody else, as I had done on my first lap. This is when the front-end of the bike got twisted up from the impact that the bike took; the handlebars, triple clamps, forks, front wheel & front fender were all out of alignment this only compounded my awkward riding at the end.

I know that this is lame, but I did pull out early from the 2-hour race. After being lapped 2 times by the leaders, upon completing my second lap, I pulled in 15 minutes before the end of the 2-hour race. My first lap was 40 minutes, & my second was just over 1 hour… Another lap would have put me almost to the start of the ATV race following my race. I actually stopped twice on the 2^nd lap & just rested for almost 10 minutes… again, this is largely from exhausting myself from crashing, picking the bike back up, restarting the bike & all over again. I am OK with it though because of my yearlong plan to develop my riding & to become competitive as the year progresses… plus, I’m not in it for points.

What can I take with me from this race?

• Well my bike ran strong & didn’t break this time.
• This race proved to me that when I’m practicing, I’m riding at a faster pace then I do in the races… and at this faster pace I am able to flow a lot better, I ride smoother & bounce off of things much less. But this faster practice pace is only being ridden for about 15 minutes… then I stop & rest. So during a 2 hour race, I’m riding slower & tighter… trying to conserve my energy for the full race… but it’s a catch-22 because at this slower pace, I’m not riding tighter & bouncing off of things, putting myself in places that I shouldn’t be & is both wearing me out more & also causing some crashes… with picking the bike up & kicking it over is wearing me out all that much more. If I could just stay smooth on the bike, keep my momentum & quit crashing… I would be so much better off in the endurance department.
• I also need to work on control of the bike when trying to stop quickly in the single-track. I dropped the bike a couple of times, just trying to pull over & get out of the way as I was being lapped.
• Not looking far enough ahead… need to improve my use of the bike controls.
• Overall I had a fun day… but I am not happy with my riding though, I feel that I rode fairly crappy.

Update: Hey, I just found the results from my race online… I actually beat 5 other riders from the B, A & AA classes!! These 5 riders only completed 1 lap… while I completed 2 laps
If you look though, all of their lap times for their 1 lap were much faster then my 40 minute first lap.