What a blast!!! Weather was perfect.
I'd signed up with the Intermediate Women...yipes. They lined us up with the 125 intermediates, which meant I was way up front with 4 others in my class, which was good, however, when the flag went down(!) holy cow. I was dropped by the end of the pavement and all alone by the start of the first ridge road - maybe a quarter mile in. Decided to call myself the "anti-cherrypicker". :-)
And then, I will forever remember the sound of the Novice 125's coming from behind, OMG. My first thought was GET OFF THE TRACK YOU FOOL!!! But I held my line just fine and the first group flew by and from then on it was just a regular Elsinore Experience. Got passed a bunch, started passing others by my 4th lap, passed a lot of crashed riders, got in 6 laps like last year (total of 22.8 miles), altho this year felt like my new bigger bike and Steering Stabilizer made it a lot calmer race for me, felt way more relaxed, no near death experiences, didn't fall once, only came close once and that one wasn't bad.
So then on Sunday, Randy and I line up with the 50+ Novices, 12 in all I think, lots of nice banter on the line... "Hi I'm Tom, red doesn't pass red, right?" "I'll be fighting you for the last position"...etc etc.... hah. I get a repeat of my Saturday's start - dropped by the end of the pavement, all alone on the ridgeline road. But at least this time, the "beginner" 40+ guys didn't catch me so fast or violently and the one other woman didn't catch me til the end of lap 5. I got 6 in again, Randy did 6 also but beat me by about 4 minutes. Which makes me think I was shooting a bit high thinking I might make 7 laps :-).... no way to know how close he was to 7, but I'd have at least 6 or 7 minutes to make up probably to do it. Feel like I could have done the corners way faster and cleaner, did those better on my BBR, but otherwise the Honda performed fantastically. I didn't fall either day, had a couple closer calls on Sunday - once trying to keep up with the other gal when she came by and I put together like 4 really bad corners.... good grief slow down and get it back under control! So much fun.
The results were garbled up, so don't know for sure where we finished, I was either 3rd or 4th of 4 in the Women's Intermediate, Kelley Yancy only lapped me once(!), Randy was about 5th of 12 in the 50+ and I was 10th.
We talked to the new organizer and she said they are going to try and hold the race again next year, assuming they can get the city to okay it. And she said they were going to rethink the groupings of classes - not put the women in with the 125's... think there were only about 14 "Legends" (Ol89er did come by and say hello, which was nice), would be good if we could go with them.
And they'll straighten out the results soon. Same photograpers were there, when photos come up we'll pass them on.
-SusanP.
CRF250x
I'd signed up with the Intermediate Women...yipes. They lined us up with the 125 intermediates, which meant I was way up front with 4 others in my class, which was good, however, when the flag went down(!) holy cow. I was dropped by the end of the pavement and all alone by the start of the first ridge road - maybe a quarter mile in. Decided to call myself the "anti-cherrypicker". :-)
And then, I will forever remember the sound of the Novice 125's coming from behind, OMG. My first thought was GET OFF THE TRACK YOU FOOL!!! But I held my line just fine and the first group flew by and from then on it was just a regular Elsinore Experience. Got passed a bunch, started passing others by my 4th lap, passed a lot of crashed riders, got in 6 laps like last year (total of 22.8 miles), altho this year felt like my new bigger bike and Steering Stabilizer made it a lot calmer race for me, felt way more relaxed, no near death experiences, didn't fall once, only came close once and that one wasn't bad.
So then on Sunday, Randy and I line up with the 50+ Novices, 12 in all I think, lots of nice banter on the line... "Hi I'm Tom, red doesn't pass red, right?" "I'll be fighting you for the last position"...etc etc.... hah. I get a repeat of my Saturday's start - dropped by the end of the pavement, all alone on the ridgeline road. But at least this time, the "beginner" 40+ guys didn't catch me so fast or violently and the one other woman didn't catch me til the end of lap 5. I got 6 in again, Randy did 6 also but beat me by about 4 minutes. Which makes me think I was shooting a bit high thinking I might make 7 laps :-).... no way to know how close he was to 7, but I'd have at least 6 or 7 minutes to make up probably to do it. Feel like I could have done the corners way faster and cleaner, did those better on my BBR, but otherwise the Honda performed fantastically. I didn't fall either day, had a couple closer calls on Sunday - once trying to keep up with the other gal when she came by and I put together like 4 really bad corners.... good grief slow down and get it back under control! So much fun.
The results were garbled up, so don't know for sure where we finished, I was either 3rd or 4th of 4 in the Women's Intermediate, Kelley Yancy only lapped me once(!), Randy was about 5th of 12 in the 50+ and I was 10th.
We talked to the new organizer and she said they are going to try and hold the race again next year, assuming they can get the city to okay it. And she said they were going to rethink the groupings of classes - not put the women in with the 125's... think there were only about 14 "Legends" (Ol89er did come by and say hello, which was nice), would be good if we could go with them.
And they'll straighten out the results soon. Same photograpers were there, when photos come up we'll pass them on.
-SusanP.
CRF250x
