I’m short on time this week because of a busy work schedule but here’s the gist of my race experience this past weekend:
• Pearson, WI is four hours north of where I live in WI. It’s pretty much the great wild north but not quite as far away. I felt like I was in the middle of Canada somewhere. Joe couldn’t make the trip because of his busy work schedule so it was up to me to wave the Vesrah Suzuki Offroad flag in Pearson.
• Actually, lots of Canada made its way to Pearson a long time ago by way of ice age glaciers. The bazillion of watermelon-sized rocks is debris dragged down from Canada.
• Pearson is famous around here for hosting a solid D16 Enduro event. The hare scramble I did on Saturday was all I had time for but there was an Enduro planned for Sunday. The parking lot had lots of vehicles I had never seen before and I caught lappers with license plates on their bikes. I assume they were the Enduro crowd I’ve never spent time with. Someday I will because Enduro racing looks like a good time.
• The trails in Pearson are narrow but have great flow. Somehow the tight spots aren’t slow there. My pre-race observation lap on my mountain bike had me thinking the race would be slow and frustrating but it was actually fast and lots of fun.
• I finally managed to get a good start and entered the first woods section behind series points leader Mat Herrington. This was the perfect scenario for me: watch, learn, make a plan. But it wasn’t 10 seconds into that woods section that I clipped a tree and landed sideways in the trail. My bike stalled and I had the remainder of the AA group passing me however they could just to get by. To be fair, the AA field at Pearson was thin and it was only Mat, John Strangfeld, Speedy Pete Laubmeier and me racing against each other. John and Pete take this racing stuff much lighter than Mat and me so there’s getting to be a bit of tension between the guys that are trying hard and the guys that are fast and skilled but racing for the fun of it.
• I chased John down pretty easily so I started looking for a place to get by but that was impossible. He’s fast and the trail was narrow and too new to me to try anything risky. I followed him for the entire first lap then got by right before we went back into the opening tight woods. Like a total squid, I clipped the same damn tree and stopped sideways in the trail AGAIN. I have to quit making such stupid mistakes if I want to get any sleep at night.
• I got going and planned to catch Pete at some point. I figured he would tire out. Mat was the one I was worried about. He’s been fast and has a lot of confidence from his GNCC racing and recent D16 results. If I wanted to win I needed Mat to have bad luck or I needed to ride mistake-free for the remainder of the race.
• The trail was 70% tight woods with lots of attention-grabbing stuff like trees at odd angles, wide trenches that would snag your feet and pegs, and round rocks that were covered with slippery dirt and moss. The remaining 30% of the loop was scary fast logging road with a single beat-in line that was whooped out. I increased the damping on my GPR-4 damper about half way through the race because the soft suspension I loved in the woods was dangerous in the 5th gear whooped out ruts.
• More on those rocks. They were round and buried in the dirt so you tend to deflect off of them. I found it was best to stay relaxed and let the bike bounce around a little rather than force the bike in a specific direction. This ride loose and hope technique worked pretty well for me and my speed and confidence gradually increased as the race went on.
• My RM-Z250 was awesome. The Factory Connection settings gave me loads of confidence on the slick rocks and flowy trail. The only issue I had was missing my jetting a little and I had a slight bog / hesitation when I whacked open the throttle too fast. It didn’t cost me any time but it was distracting.
• There was an open field just before the scoring tent where we zigzagged back and forth. I could see if I had made up time on Mat every time we entered that field. Some laps I had closed in on him and some laps he had stretched it out. More than once I felt like I had put in a stellar lap and would come to the field and see that Mat had put time on me. That was frustrating and it somehow made me try harder. I have always had a tough time with lappers because I don’t like to push them out of the way. It’s that I wasn’t getting by lappers fast enough that was costing me time, I think.
• Finally, late in the race I started to take time out of Mat. On what I thought was going to be our last lap I was seeing his dust on the trail and getting cheered on by spectators who were saying he was just in front of me. On a road section with a high speed chicane I carried a little too much speed and lost the rear end. I slid sideways down the trail and couldn’t get the bike back under me before lowsiding in a plume of dust. The bike was still running so I picked it up, revved it hard, dumped the clutch and spun the bike around the right direction. But when I leaped on to go it stalled. It was in 4th gear.
• I figured that was the end of my race and that 2nd place was as good as I would do. It took me a few minutes to get back up to speed and I knew I was losing time to Mat while I sorted my self out. I was kicking my self for making such a silly mistake when catching Mat was within my reach.
• When we came around we were told to do one more lap. Wow! A second chance. I put my head down and charged like mad. I strung together every fast bit of trail I could and then, halfway through the lap, I caught Mat. Unfortunately we had already ridden through most of the sections that allowed a safe pass so I was forced to ride behind him and hope for a mistake. We caught a lapper that let him by but not me and that was enough to let Mat get a gap before we got back to the grassy zigzags before the scoring tent. I finished 1 second behind Mat.
• Congrats to Mat on his results and solid race.
• I’m super stoked with my speed and endurance. My faster laps came at the end of the race. I need to work on my early race speed and consistency. No more dumb errors.
• Hixton is next. Woohoo!
It’s a sickness! Nice work!