craig_enid

Member
Mar 23, 2000
872
0
I anxiously watched the weather forecasts as January 27th approached. They settled in on a low Saturday night in the 30's, warming to a high around 70, Sunday afternoon. I must be living right! Post, Texas, here I come. This would be my 4th year in a row to make this one, the only down side being the long drive home. My wife said she wanted to go with me on this one, long drive problem solved.

I pre-loaded the course info into the Watchdog 2000 that I had acquired late last year. This would be the 2nd timekeeper I've run with it. The unit offers a lot of information that I'm just too old, slow, and stupid to utilize. We loaded up the camping gear, race gear, and food gear and hit the road early Saturday afternoon. We stuck to the interstate highways to keep the slow-downs to a minimum and rolled into camp around 10:00 pm. The first open camping spots we stopped at all had generators puttering away nearby, so we ended up on the far west end of the camping area. Threw the tent up quickly and settled in for the night. We had hoped to get some night sky gazing in, but the nearly full moon washed out all but the brightest stars.

Sunday morning dawned cold and beautiful. I hit sign-up and discovered there was a big turn-out. Last year I was on row 2, this year the first open slot was in the AA rows. Knowing I would spend more time getting out of their way than riding, I opted for row 40, and a little warmer start temperature. Good choice. Back to camp and finish gearing up. I don't know where the time went, but suddenly it's 9:20 and I'm not ready yet. Finally set except for the Watchdog. 10 minutes til start time. I had set my wrist watch to keytime, and attempted to set the 'puter off of that. First try, no good. 8 minutes til start time. Second try, ended up with the countdown timer looking correct. No time to double check it. Fire up and head for start. Countdown shows 2 minutes left as I notice row 38 taking off. Whew.... close enough for me. Quick intro to rest of the row, and in no time, we're off. Nice pace to warm up heading to the first check. No problems, trail and tempurature were perfect. Drop one point at the first check, trying to run off of the computer, instead of row-mate. Good learning experience. Leave reset 5 minutes hot, and do some slow trail riding while looking for the next check. When I got to a tight place, I would shut down and wait for earlier row to go by. If it didn't sound like they were slowing down, I would chance it. Trail would open up again, and I would get some more mileage rolled up. While waiting at a tight spot, the rest of my row showed up. We were about 2 minutes hot. We decided to try to stay on our minute from that point on. I was designated to lead, since I was the only one with a 'puter. I would let them know when we were a minute down, and anyone still with me would be the new leader. Got onto the trail, and in no time I was showing 45 seconds late. I still had a rider on my tail, so I pulled over at a wide spot. Row-mate on a KTM then took the lead and he soon lost me. Ride blurred into race mode, with periodic glances showing me getting 4, then 5, then 6 minutes behind. Hit a check-out, then start it all over again. At one check-out, as I was synchronizing mileage, a helpful worker pointed out a sign that said '10 minute free time'. I laughed as I said 'Thanks!', knowing that I had just dropped that 10 minutes on the last section. No rest for the weary....

Dust was not a problem, the wind in the open terrain disapated it rapidly. Had a blast on the course, made alot better time through the sandy creek bottoms. Previous years, I had spent too much energy struggling through them at a slow pace. Ended up dropping 35 points, and really enjoying the race.

Turn in the score sheet, head back to camp to find about everything packed and ready. Sweet!

Thanks to Renegade Trails for a good race and to my wife for the company and help. (You know, sweetheart, Blackwell isn't THAT much farther than Post.....)

http://community.webshots.com/album/30145277TPaxMvPeUo
 

justql

Sponsoring Member<BR>Club Moderator
LIFETIME SPONSOR
Oct 23, 2000
2,874
0
Great report

and even better pictures. Sorry I missed the ride. (as usual)
 
Top Bottom