A big weekend saturday at Rum River BMX in Isanti, and Sunday in Faribault....
I had to qualify for both class and cruiser at Rum River BMX, we had a stacked gate for the 41-45 class, Mike Auman, Scott Kraker, Dave Christensen, all very fast guys, and they showed me how fast they really are, relegating me to the second moto to transfer, AND 4th place in the final, in the rain!!!!!!!!!
On my class bike, I also had some fast guys, but we had enough that I was able to transfer out of the first moto, and race for second place, only to bonk on one of the obstacles and lose my momentum relegating me to 3rd place on my class bike...
Faribault was a siginificantly smaller turn out but still almost 40 motos, I had total points in the 41-45 cruiser class against.... you guessed it Mike Auman and Scott Kraker... damn those guys are fast and I am really sick of looking at their butts...
especially after 2 races on saturday and 3 more on sunday! But I will take my 3rd, that gives me 2 second place finishes and a 3rd place finish for state points, on my cruiser!
I had an interesting day on my class bike at Faribault, the track was hard pack, dry-slick, with dust on top, in the first moto over the first roller, I lost the front wheel and threw myself on the ground, tweaked my bars back and other than a raspberry on my forearm I was fine, but had to go to the second moto to transfer, which I did pretty easily, In the main though, I got a mediocre start, I about crashed in the first berm AND the second berm and just decided it wasn't worth crashing again, so I ended up with a 4th place on my class bike, not happy with my performance, but still have 3 wins for the state points on class bike, one of them I think is a novice win which is worth less points... we'll see once ABA posts the points!
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Had a great opportunity this weekend, saturday afternoons have proven to be slower times for the shop in Brainerd, so I was able to 'escape' around noon and get to the Minnesota state qualifier races at Lakes Area BMX in Brainerd. 49 motos! Which is a great turnout, I raced against a couple of the guys that I have raced before on the cruiser so I knew I had my hands full, but there were enough cruisers that we had our own 41-45 class, which is good cause the next 2 age groups down are a ton faster... I was able to stick with Scott for both motos and the main, but was not able to catch him, so I got a 2nd place, pretty happy with that, considering I had a 4th or 5th at Rehbeins back in March for a qualifier. Having a 2nd makes things much better.
On my class bike I had a very good weekend, normally I get put with experts and such, but this time in Brainerd anyway, I was in a group of older guys for class. I was hardly able to balance on the gate there, hope they can increase the angle of the actual gate there, it would be most helpful in balancing, especially since the put the light way up over the track, cool idea but needs some tweaking. Anyway, I even though I had crappy gates I raced pretty well, and was able to check out on the other 41+ inter's and get my 2nd intermediate win, and at a state qualifier on top of it!
Saturday evening my sweetie and I camped in a little campground near Perham grilled up some chicken fajitas, enjoyed the evening lake air.
Sunday morning we headed into Detroit Lakes for their State Qualifing races. There was a fairly small turnout, only 25 motos... which can be a good thing or a bad thing, it ended up ok for me, small turnout means less 'competition' but at my age it usually means I get grouped with much younger and faster kids... which was kinda what happened. Cruiser I had a very fast 15 year old kid, I did my best to keep him honest which resulted in a direct transfer to the main out of the first moto! Since there were 5 in the class they transferred 2 from each moto. Come time for the feature it was pretty much a repeat of the first moto, Quinten and me out front. Where I locked up another 2nd place for the state points!
On my class bike I had my hands full, a 19X and another close to 30, and one of the guys I raced at Lakes Area BMX saturday. Because there were 4 of us it was a 1-2 transfer, so I had to go to the second round to transfer... Come time for the main I tried to stay close to the younger guys and keep em honest, and one of my favorite sayings came true... "to finish first, one must first finish" they took each other out in the 2nd berm, handing me the win!
I am very excited to have 3 wins for state points on my class bike, although one of them is as a novice which doesn't have as many points, so if I can get another win on my class bike I will be able to concentrate on getting a win or two on my cruiser...
Thanks again to my sponsors....
FELT BIKES
BELL HELMETS
ODI GRIPS
REVOLUTION CYCLE AND SKI
DONAHUE HARLEY-DAVIDSON |
Tuesday evening races at Lakes area BMX, decided to get a race in before the state championship qualifier there on saturday the 10th...
I had to work til 7, although I snuck out about 10 minutes early... Arrived in time to get dressed, and check the moto board. total points on my class bike and 4 in the cruiser class, racing 3 kids all half my age or younger, and in class one 2/3rds my age and one less than half my age. The first moto I took it pretty easy just because I had no practice, second round was a little better. The track here has a little bit more peaky tops to the obstacles which took me a bit to get used to. On my class bike I got a good gate and was running with the 2nd place when he made a mistake, I was hopeful that I would be able to hold him off after that but was not, and the second moto was very similar but neither of them made mistakes, so I got a 3rd and 3rd. On my cruiser I went got an OK start in the first race but was unable to pass the leader, so I ended up 2nd, therefore had to run the second round. In the second round I got a good start and had a gap on 2nd and 34rd so I finished with a first and transferred...
Feature time I was ready to challenge for the lead on my cruiser, and got a good pop on the gate, after sitting on the gate for a while for a crash in the previous moto... I was able to keep up most of the way, but with the peaky jumps and me being a ground dweller, the kid I raced likes to sky it out and was able to gain momentum over many of the obstacles I was just trying to get past... I've GOT to learn to jump, it is killing me! Of course at my age crashing could kill me too! =;^) Anyway I was able to haunt the leader all the way to the last berm, there I backed off as I wasn't going to catch him...
My Class bike I got a good pop on the gate and raced em to the first berm and they started to get racey in the berm I did a HI-LO and was able to pull along side, until... yep you guessed it, they both jumped the double out of the first berm and put a gap on me... Oh well, Expert points for third is good too!
thanks to FELT, ODI, BELL, BOMBSHELL, Revolution Cycle and Ski! |
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