At least it wasn’t muddy…
I spent the week leading up to this race with one eye on the weather forecast and the other on the VCHSS site for whatever information I could glean on the condition of the course. Rain was in the forecast but times and amounts kept shifting. All I cared about was that this wouldn’t be a mud race.
I hate mud. No, wait, that’s not nearly strong enough; I loathe mud with every fiber of my being.
Don’t get me wrong, I could care less about getting dirty, but riding in the mud is difficult. Not the fun, challenging, ‘climb every mountain and sing a fucking song at the top’ kind of difficult, but the ‘damn, this #^%$@*&!# suuuuuuuuckkksss, I’d rather be forced to sponge-bathe Hillary Clinton, and now I’m soaked from head to toe and will have to spend the next six hours washing this crap off the bike, and for what??” kind of difficult.
The suspense ended Saturday though when the reports were that the rain was coming down heavy and there was standing water throughout the Birch Creek facility.
So, this was going to be a mud race. Wonderful.
We arrived at Birch Creek around 8:30am Sunday morning and my first impression was that the place looked to be in great shape – a little damp in spots but nothing too crazy. Then we saw the motocross track – the mud had to be at least a foot deep, without exaggeration. We actually watched some kid leave the starting line for a last-minute trip to the porta-john, and his bike just stayed there. Upright. By itself. Without using the kickstand.
Aaaanyway, the course layout was actually pretty cool – part motocross track, part supercross track, part grass track and part woods, with a total combined length of right around five miles. Most of the mud was reserved for the motocross and supercross tracks; the grass sections were relatively dry, and the woods would turn out to be not all that wet at all and very rideable.
We watched the start and the first couple of laps of the mini race to get an idea of where the lines would develop before heading back to the truck to get geared up for my race.
Got to the line a few minutes early. I wanted to get an idea how the bike would react and whether I’d have any traction in this slop by running up and down the start area a few times, but there was no way to do so without kicking up roost and covering everyone else with mud, so I had to forget about it and just hope for the best.
There were 18 bikes (including me) in the 45+ class today. As the rows of bikes in the classes in front of us took off, big ol’ globs of mud were getting roosted back all over us. I thought it was going to be ugly when the guy directly in front of me took off, but he (mercifully) feathered his clutch and kept the revs down.
I, on the other hand, gave no such consideration to those behind me. When the flag went up for our class, I was on the throttle hard. Got a good jump off the line but got passed by a whole lot of bikes by the time we got to the first turn. I’d never really ridden or practiced on anything like this and my inexperience was now paying off for the other guys. Coming down the first big hill on that motocross track with the front wheel plowing through the mud while desperately searching for a rideable line and the bike dancing all over the place underneath me was…well, it was white knuckle time. Big time. I did manage to keep up with the tail end of my class though, and when things sorted out, was somewhere around 15th
Bob racing VCHSS Birch Creek 2011
By the time we came around to the supercross track, I was wondering just what in the hell I had gotten myself into. BUT, no sooner had I asked myself that question than I started to make some passes for position. As much as I’d like to say the passes were a result of my superior skill and finely-honed reflexes, the truth is simply that these guys were having just a bit more trouble than I was. No complaints from me though… Once out of the supercross section (and out of the mud) we hit the first grass section. This was my first taste of traction and I pinned the big 300. Man this bike is fast. Several more passes – I know at least a couple were for position – and then we were finally in the woods.
From this point on, I can’t really tell you the order of things. I know we came in and out of the woods a couple of times with some more grass track in between, then some rock obstacles, then finally back onto the motocross track and through scoring.
First lap I came through 10th, a surprisingly good position considering the freight train that passed me by on the start. At the end of lap 2 I was 9th, having picked up another position in the woods somewhere.
By the third lap, some decent lines were developing on the motocross track, but there was still a lot of the deep mud left and it was starting to take a physical toll. Upper body was starting to ‘rubberize’, but the layout of the course was such that every time the muscles seemed about ready to give out, here came a smooth section that allowed me to regroup enough to get through the next bit of nastiness. However, by the end of this lap I was regrouping less and less and starting to make mistakes.
Lap 4 was not pretty. My strength was almost sapped but I was still keeping up a decent pace. The bike was handling really well but I was starting to drop it occasionally due to my rapidly increasing fatigue. At one point I came across a 5 or 6 bike bottleneck caused by one racer stuck on a hill. I saw a clear line through the woods that would have taken me cleanly around it, but I didn’t have the energy to pop the wheel up and swing it around the 90 degrees necessary to point me in the right direction to take advantage of it. I scouted an alternate line and took it instead, and promptly got stuck behind another rider who had the same idea but then got themselves hung up on something.
Once clear of this bottleneck, and having lost all track of how many laps had gone by, I pressed on with everything I had left thinking this was the last lap. When I came around through scoring, there was my position – 9th – on the board, but where were the checkers?
Oh. Shit.
I was, at this point, more tired than I’ve ever been in any race. Flat-our exhausted; I had absolutely nothing left, having used up the very last of my ‘reserve’. My heart was pounding, the sweat was pouring off of me in sheets, there was mud in my mouth and my goggles, I was barely able to steer the bike through the tape at the scoring tent….and I had to run at least one more lap.
The thought of bailing out briefly crossed my mind, but just as quickly, it was gone. I’ve done that before in the past, and the shame of going home a quitter is not a pleasant thing. I came here to race, and as long as I could still hold the bike up, that’s exactly what I was gonna do.
This last lap was like no other I’d ever run. Ever. In fact, I don’t even remember running most of it. I was in pure 100% survival mode, the body and mind just doing what it knew how to do with no real conscious input from me. The most prominent recollection I do have is of coming around the motocross track that final time, seeing the scoring tent not 50 yards in front of me and wondering/hoping/praying that I’d make it.
Funny thing, not only was that my fastest lap of the day, but I also managed to pick up another position. Took the checkers 8th in class.
Back at the truck, there was a bag of pastries sitting on the dash which I had bought a little earlier in the day from the Horizon Riders (young racers 4-11 years old) bake sale. That half-melted cream cheese-filled cream puff was quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.
A big, big shout out to my friend Bruce Lyttle, who gave me possibly the best, most timely advice I’ve ever received with regards to racing. Having coached his son through a few years of motocross, he told me to stay loose and let the bike do what it wanted to do in the mud on the MX portion of the course. So I did, and it saved my ass more times in those five laps than I can count. Thanks, dude.
Oh, and the forks? They kicked ass.
Next up: Pipsico 100 on November 13th. Woo-hoo!