It was another beautiful weather day for MX racing. I signed up for the 250C and +35 classes.

The weekend before this race I came to the track to practice ride with one of my CBMX teammates. I spent about an hour working on the whoops section and finally got down the art of doubling through them. There are 4 doubles then 1 last whoop in this section. My next goal is to double, double, double then triple out of the whoops section. This is what all the fast guys are doing at the track. So, this was my first race where I was doubling through the whoops, before I was just banging into each one of them. Doesn’t do much for your speed or endurance!

We had 4 Team CBMX riders for this race weekend.

Moto 1 of the 250C class was the most fun moto of the day. I got to battle it out with 2 different riders. The first battle was with the leader of the 250D class, who is a friend of mine. Yes, that’s right…I got a bad start and ended up behind the 250D leader. They dropped all four classes (250A, B, C & D) in one drop. I think we had close to 20 bikes charging into the first turn! I passed the 250D leader at the beginning of the 2nd lap, only to have him pass me right back. But a few turns later I was able to put the pass on him for good. But right on my tail was a CR250 that was in my class. He got inside of me on the last turn before the front straight and got passed me on the 3rd lap. But the good ol’ 440 FI motor pulled hard down the front straight and I was able to pass him back before the first turn! It was an awesome feeling to do that! He finally got me back about halfway through the 3rd lap. After all that battling to stay ahead of these guys I just didn’t have enough energy in me to chase him back down before the moto was over. What a fun moto though!

Moto 1 of the +35 class had 6 riders in it and 3 of us were Team CBMX riders! My ride in this moto was uneventful. I still enjoyed it a lot though. I did have to protect the inside line a lot towards the end of the race since my other CBMX teammate was hounding my tail! The cool thing was that my other CBMX teammate won the moto on his new KTM 450! I still need to work on my corner speed and I also need to jump a little farther on some of the jumps to start landing on the downside of them. This will help my lap times too.

Moto 2 of the 250C class wasn’t quite as fun as my first one. I got a back-of-the-pack start but passed two guys by halfway through lap 1. Then the bike stalled on me. I got roosted pretty heavily but I was also landing a small table-top jump at the same time when it quit. I pulled off to the side of the track and was able to fire it back up within 10 seconds but now I was in dead last! I did pass one guy by the end of lap 1. In the middle of lap 3 I was just about to pass another rider. I was making a left hand turn and when I went to put my leg out I caught it in the dirt which caused it to go back towards the rear wheel. Unfortunately at the same time my front end began to wash out. Down I went with my left leg caught under the bike. I grabbed the clutch to keep the bike from stalling, but in doing so, I did not give myself enough leverage to pick the bike up off my leg. So after a couple of comical attempts of me trying to get up only to have the bike knock me back down I finally got my leg out and stood up the bike. By this time it finally died. But, once again it fired right back up and I didn’t lose any positions. Of course I was second to last already! So I just finished out the moto trying to ride my best and not fall down or stall it anymore.

Moto 2 of the +35 class was a repeat of Moto 1, including my CBMX teammate on his KTM 450 taking the win again! On the last lap my other CBMX teammate passed me and held on to beat me. That’s the first time he’s done that since we’ve started racing in the same class. At least he told me that he rode harder than he ever has! I gotta start using more of that Dale power!

PICS

Troy
Racer on Christian Brothers MX Team (CBMX) #126
Member of One Way Racing (OWR)
Sponsored by cdaleparts.com