My first race story - Not a race victory, but a first time personal goal accomplisment.
The weekend started out rough. I fought a sinus cold Friday and Sat. on Antibiotics and decongestants. I was weak going to the track..and to top it off had flat on the SUV pulling 3 four wheelers, when we got there.
For the race....at this point my goal was to make it at least 1 lap in one piece.
I ran the Utility ATV class...I lined up with 3 Can-Am Renegade 800's to my right and 2 Hondas and a Yamaha(i think) to my left. The 800 next to me had a pipe and he sounded like a race car at the drag races..(I am on a Kymco MXU500)
The course was a punishing 10 miles. It was far more demanding than any of the normal trails down there. Every type of terrain was in that course...did I say brutal? It was!
At the start...I was psyched...I had my mind set for a good start. I wanted as close as possible to the 3 Can-ams on my right and make sure I beat the three others on my left.
10 second countdown and my nerves got the best of me...I accidently pressed the start button.....panic....I hit the kill switch..missed it...finally hit it...switched it back on and broke my ryhthm timing cause the flag raised..and I wasn't as quick as I would have been....
Well it wasn't too bad the Can-ams pulled in front I was beating the two hondas on my left , but the third one on the end I didn't see until the first hard left and he inched in front of me. I pushed him all the way into the woods..i had to ride the breaks to stay off him.
I stayed on him for 6 miles. I was actually racing guys!! Yeeeee haaaa!.
Well I got really exhausted and I slowed up a tad...but kept him in check....I was hoping for a feild or straight away so that I could really romp down on it and use some of my Kymco power to get around him. It never came...it was tight twisting turns the whole way. There were no good spots to pass…..I was really parched and had to let off to grab my camelpak mouthpiece in to suck down some cold water...what would I have done without it!
I started gaining back on him again but at around mile 7 we hit a massive rock crawl...I never knew there were rocks like that down there....I was'nt prepared and had to tip-toe threw that area..it went off camber up a hill and back over to a creek (mud hole) that intimidated the heck out of me so i slowed a lot there..by 8 miles I was hurting...arm pump was killing me...legs getting tired...
Finally mile 9 and people were all lined up a long a section and that gave me energy. I was almost to the end.
After I finally passed through the checkpoint and they registered my time, I was goiing to come on out and be done...I made my one lap. I gunned it out and saw my dealer (the guy who talked me into racing) standing going “go – go, yeah” you know with the arms waving like “your doing great , go get’em’….well after seeing that I got a second wind and gunned on for lap 2. I was only 17 seconds behind the guy in front of me.
Well was barely hanging on trying to drive hard and fast but not overdoing it…I had almost completely drained my camelpak of water and I was drained., at around the 5 mile mark (of lap 2) there is this real narrow rough section I come bouncing through there and my left front tire hit a tree and it stopped me cold at about 18 mph. Took me a second to get back up and going. I got back on the trail but it felt like my front was pulling and I was really exhausted, my arms could keep manhandling the front anymore and at the 6 mile marker (around there) I saw through the woods a way to get off the trail and go back to the finish. I decided, I was too wore out to go in any further and I also kept fearing I had damaged something in my front end so I called it a day.
Although not a victory story, I ran about 1 - 3/4 laps. I probably could have just pulled over and rested a minute or two and could have made the last 4 miles of lap 2 but I was too fatigued and the fear I had broke something on the front loomed over me.
I learned that I can ride all day like we do when we go down for a weekend (6-7 hours straight) , but racing is whole different animal. The course is tough the whole 10+ miles…no resting or taking it easy. It definitely is a endurance race. My hats off to these guys racing….especially the ones racing the MXU500 like mine..it is a handful.
I do think I will be much better the next time...I think I can hang with (lap times ) and beat the other similar quads with a little more practice. I probably raced to hard the first lap (because I knew I was better than those three other guys) and got too fatigued. I was the oldest guy at 46 in that class against a bunch of younger , but experienced guys.....I got to get my legs into better shape for sure.
See ya.
