Quarter Mile Cross

Quarter Mile Cross 11/25/12

Yesterday was Quarter Mile Cross, which was a race at Bandimere speedway. It was another completely new course, and once again I had no idea what to expect. I was worried about this race, because I had been sick for the whole week before. I didn’t race the weekend before, and wasn’t able to get back on my bike until the Friday before my race. I wasn’t sure if my stomach would hold up during the race. I also felt very unprepared and lazy not riding for a whole week. I knew I couldn’t ride, but not riding for that long still made me feel lazy. At least I was itching to get back on my bike and mentally ready to race.

I woke up at 8:30 on sunday morning and started my race day rituals, or at least I tried. I had forgotten to run the dishwasher the night before, so I didn’t have any clean bottles. I also didn’t have the container to make my smoothie, so I had to wait for the dishwasher to finish washing. I had to rethink my morning. I decided the best way to fix it was to do everything backwards. Which meant the last thing I would do before leaving was have my smoothie, and the first thing to do was to eat an apple. I thought if I get still eat the same thing as always I will feel the same during the race, even though it wasn’t in usual order. If it was anything other than a smoothie and an apple, I don’t think it would have worked as well as it did. But even with these inconveniences, I was still able to leave on time.

    To get to parking we had to drive next to the course on a frontage road. From what I could see it was fast, technical, and challenging. The parking lot was huge, and we got an amazing parking spot right next to the start line. I got out, got my license out of my bag, and went to go register. I didn’t pre register, so I didn’t have a callup. But there were only five people registered, so I didn’t have to worry about getting a good starting position. From registration I could see most of the course I couldn’t see before. The first thing I thought about was tire pressure and grip. Half the course was on a very slippery gravel. Earlier in the season I crashed and sprained my ankle on a similar surface, so I was worried that I would take a nasty spill again. I put that behind me and went back to the car to change into my gear. I took off my lucky pajamas, and got into my skin suit. It was warm, and I didn’t have to wear any extra warm clothes. I drank some water, and headed out on my pre ride.
    The start was very interesting and very scary. It was on the ultra loose gravel. It was so loose that when practicing my start I had to sit down to keep my wheel from just spinning. The loose gravel didn’t end there. The first corner was on the same gravel, and it was so loose that I almost crashed. It was like this for four or five more corners before the course went up a steep bike path to a higher parking lot. That is where it immediately went into 44 stairs. I was ecstatic to see a long stair section, because that is my where I can get gaps without spending any extra energy. Then there was a deceptively difficult dirt section. There was a four inch drop into shallow sand that quickly bottlenecked into a trail about ten inches wide. On one side of the trail there was a wall of rock, and on the other was tape to keep people on the dirt. It ended with a four inch lip back onto the road that was parallel to the trail. There was two different approaches, that were equally awkward. The first option was to stay close to the lip and bunny hop sideways back onto the road. The second option was to ride through some sand and turn in to face the lip more perpendicularly to bunny hop it. I chose to stay close to the lip, because it was less awkward and faster. After that section it was almost immediately back onto dirt, but only for a loose switchback. After that it was down a paved hill and onto the loose gravel. There was three corners then a set of barriers. The first one was full size, but the second one was only half size. I debated on bunny hopping them, but I decided it was safer to run them. After the barriers there was a very fast loose downhill. It was treacherous, but at high speeds I could fly over most of the scariest spots.

Another technical and difficult part of the course was a very off camber 180 degree turn. It was hard to get the right line, but if you did it was almost twice as fast. Then it was back onto the road for short but fast climb. Then another switchback, then onto more dirt. Eventually after a very bumpy strait there was a runup. I tried multiple times to ride it, but it was just a little too loose. Running it was still challenging though. It was very sandy, and it was very uneven from the morning races. But it was short and after the runup was another road section. The road lead to more loose gravel, and eventually onto a steep road that led to the finish. I really liked to course. Mostly because it gave me a challenge. Some of my teammates disagreed with me, but I decided it was because they were roadies. I set my bike up in the trainer for my warm up, and I ate an apple. I had 20 minutes until I wanted to get on the trainer, so I talked with my teammates to kill some time. We talked about the course for a while. Mostly about the parts that scared us most. But after about ten minutes most of the people I was talking to had to start staging for their races.

My warm up was unusual for me. Halfway through my mom and stepdad showed up to say hello, but they left before my race. While they were there they distracted my dad, so I had to refocus him constantly. Which is hard when you are going as hard as possible, and almost completely out of breath from it. I was also facing my teammate while warming up. It was only weird because we were just far enough away not to talk, and he was one of the few other people in my category. At least my body felt great, and my stomach wasn’t hurting at all. My mom finally left as I took my bike off the trainer. I love when she is there to watch my races, but with my dad already there she was a bit of a distraction. I went to staging, did a few starts, and waited for the official to do callups.

They ended up not even doing callups, because there were only enough racers to fill up one row. Everyone was talking about the first corner. We all were scared of someone wrecking. I decided to try to get the holeshot to avoid any possibility of carnage. I heard the sound of the whistle, and I exploded off the start line. I was side by side with one of the adult racers. The gravel was deep enough to make everyone weave from lack of traction. Luckily the only person I had to worry about was the guy beside me. I let him go before me into the first corner. We made it through unscaved, but behind me someone went down. I couldn’t see who it was or what happened, but when I could look back all the major threats were with me. I passed the first placed rider while going up the bike path. For the first half of a lap I had almost the whole race on my wheel. At the barriers I did a double take when I saw Liam Dunn run past me. I have never been passed while going over barriers. I was a little bit stunned, but I got onto his wheel and followed him through another fourth of the course.

I was content with letting him lead. I was saving energy, and waiting to pounce on any mistake or sign of weakness. It wasn’t long before he overcooked a corner, and I went flying past him. It was the perfect launch pad for a successful attack. As he blocked the riders behind, I was full gas and gaining time. I didn’t lay off until the first lap was over, and I could assess the the damage I created. I was happy to see the whole race in disarray. There was only one person still close. So I decided to play a little mind game with him. I let up so he could catch me, then I acted like I was about to blow up. He came along side me and thought I couldn’t hold the pace. At the end of the stairs I was still in front, but he quickly tried to come around me. This time when he was parallel to me I accelerated. Psychologically he didn’t have a chance, and I was quickly leaving him behind. I know this is a terrible thing to do, but racing is war and I want to win it.

For the next lap the gap kept going up, until a chase group formed behind me. My dad was giving me time gaps at various spots of the course. I was holding the gap at 15 seconds. It stayed that way a while, but Liam was on the offensive again. The gap came down, and eventually it was small enough that I decided to do more psychological warfare. I did the same thing as before, and I wasn’t surprised when the exact same thing happened. This time the gap didn’t come back down. The chase group stayed 20 seconds back until the last lap. I knew that there would be a fight for the last podium spot going on behind me, so I sped up to keep far enough ahead. Even with the increase in speed the gap started to decrease. I wasn’t too worried, but I wanted to keep at least a ten second gap. Halfway through the last lap I went around a switchback and to my surprise Liam was a little close for comfort. I hit the gas, and made a gap of 15 seconds.

    This time it stayed 15 seconds all the way to the end. But I still got to have a sprint finish with a single speed racer. It didn’t really hit me that I won until I saw my dad. He was really surprised I won coming off a sickness, and frankly I was too. I was realizing that I am much faster than I had previously thought. After I started having confidence in my training, I really started to excel. Now instead of focusing on other peoples ability to beat me, I am focusing on being smooth and smart. Not having the burden of doubt allows me to have much more fun while racing, and be much smoother and smarter at the same time. Racing is starting to make a lot more sense to me, and hopefully I can continue this momentum for the rest of the season.