I woke up at about 8 MST, Arizona time 11 our time, sweet 10 hours of sleep. Off to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. They don't have grits, hash browns or sweet tea in Arizona. They need to come Southeast of the Mississippi river and learn about good food. I had home fries with my eggs, I guess that's ok. Then it was off to the course to get Steve's Lefty fork looked at. After our practice run on Friday all the air in it mysteriously disappeared. For some reason you have to put a ball bearing in the valve stem to put air it, well of course we don't have the bearing with us or a shock pump for that matter. Off to the Cannondale trailer nobody there, borrow a pump from the Gary Fisher guys and find a small rock for the bearing, ha ha, it worked. Funny thing it didn't leak after that. Still Steve wanted to have it looked at, so we went out to the venue. The Cannondale mechanic was not very nice at all. He even went so far as to put Steve's team replica Scalpel outside the barriers when he went to find us. Needless to say Steve wasn't to happy with the mechanic. Steve never said he was a Cannondale dealer, he said it shouldn't matter. Word must have gotten around, because later in the day the guy knew his name and was kissing his feet. Moral of the story never ignore someone you don't know, they could be someone, that works for a company sponsoring you, it wouldn't look good of you.
Anyway we went back to the hotel to grab a bite, rest in the AC and get our cycling gear.
We got back to the venue a little later than planned. We took off for a pre-lap on the cross country course. Steve and my Dad's race was at 2:30, we finished our lap at 2:23. No rest for them and no pre-lap either. But they both did great Steve took 2nd and Dad got 10th. My race was next and Dad told me to do a couple of laps before my race. Good thing I did because therewas a hill right after a 90 degree turn that you had to run up. It caught Dad by surprise and he lost about 7-8 places in his race. I'm glad he told me about it, although it still was my undoing during the race. Fortunately, I can ride almost everything in Florida so I don't have to run much, I think I'm going to practice some that little hill almost killed me. It just sapped the energy out of my legs. As the race wore on it took it toll and the leaders got a gap on me. I finished in 6th place, not to bad for my first short track race, but, I know I can do much better. I then watched coach Drew race to 19th in his race with something like 60+ riders. Then it was
Ryan Woodall's turn in the Pro race. Those guys are so dang fast it isn't funny, Geoff Kabush and Barry Wicks rode away from everybody, Ryan took 37th I think. I didn't get to watch the woman's race as I was mounting new Kenda tires, courtesy of Jim at Kenda, on my Sun Ringle' wheels. There are some serious rock gardens in the cross country course and the super light Conti SuperSonics wouldn't have survived 3 laps of pounding. After the raced ended we headed back to the same Mexican restaurant from the night before, then back to the hotel and to bed. We race at 8AM tomorrow.
Anyway we went back to the hotel to grab a bite, rest in the AC and get our cycling gear.
We got back to the venue a little later than planned. We took off for a pre-lap on the cross country course. Steve and my Dad's race was at 2:30, we finished our lap at 2:23. No rest for them and no pre-lap either. But they both did great Steve took 2nd and Dad got 10th. My race was next and Dad told me to do a couple of laps before my race. Good thing I did because therewas a hill right after a 90 degree turn that you had to run up. It caught Dad by surprise and he lost about 7-8 places in his race. I'm glad he told me about it, although it still was my undoing during the race. Fortunately, I can ride almost everything in Florida so I don't have to run much, I think I'm going to practice some that little hill almost killed me. It just sapped the energy out of my legs. As the race wore on it took it toll and the leaders got a gap on me. I finished in 6th place, not to bad for my first short track race, but, I know I can do much better. I then watched coach Drew race to 19th in his race with something like 60+ riders. Then it was
Ryan Woodall's turn in the Pro race. Those guys are so dang fast it isn't funny, Geoff Kabush and Barry Wicks rode away from everybody, Ryan took 37th I think. I didn't get to watch the woman's race as I was mounting new Kenda tires, courtesy of Jim at Kenda, on my Sun Ringle' wheels. There are some serious rock gardens in the cross country course and the super light Conti SuperSonics wouldn't have survived 3 laps of pounding. After the raced ended we headed back to the same Mexican restaurant from the night before, then back to the hotel and to bed. We race at 8AM tomorrow.
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