I'm happy to report that Sunday was a fun day for me and my TP700 at the first XC race of the season (my local XC series). Here's my race write-up:

WHERE:
Bulcher, TX?it?s a small town in north TX near the Texas/Oklahoma border. This track is a 5.5 hour drive away from my house, so I left at 3pm on Sat and stayed Sat. night at a small hotel about 25 miles from the track. I usually prefer to travel to the race and back all on the same day, but there was just no way I was willing to do so for this race due to the long distance.

TRACK CONDITIONS:
The weather on race day was almost perfect! Sunny & 60 degrees....however it was a bit windy. The track was dry and dusty. Luckily, the wind helped with visibility b/c it tended to blow away the thick dust hovering above the trails faster than normal. The track was 8 miles long and VERY TECHNICAL! Hmmmm?what happens when you take a VERY technical course and put dozens and dozens of newbies on sport quads on the track at the same time? That?s right?Bottlenecks!! More on that later?

Most of the 8 mile track ran thru tight wooded trails that carved in and out of small, but steep hills, lots of off camber trails thru shallow canyons and dry creek crossings. Only about 1 mile of the track ran thru smooth and fast pasture areas. There were some rocky areas?mostly found on steep hill climbs and descents. Some of the steep downhills were particularly tricky with small rocks/gravel?so if you locked up your tires you could easily lose control. 4wd and good engine breaking were very nice features to have at this track! Except for the 2 GNCC races that I raced in Texas back in 2004 and 2005, this course was probably the most technical and treacherous that I?ve ever raced.

MORNING PRACTICE:
Unlike the GNCC, my local series allows the riders to practice and I try to take advantage of this whenever possible. If nothing else, its good to know where to slow down for the danger spots and to memorize the track. As usual, I got to the track early on Sunday morning to sign-up and take a practice lap or 2. At sign up, I was told the track was very technical and some folks were injured the day before when they flipped their quads during practice.

Once on the trails, I quickly discovered just how technical the track was. They had cute little signs to name different tricky areas of the course. The first such area was called ?Chaos Canyon?...it sounded innocent enuf until I rode through it?I decided that it should be named ?HOLY COW?WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING HERE CANYON!? To say the least, it was very unnerving to take this extremely off camber and up/down section at 2 mph on my TP700, and I started to have doubts as to how I could maneuver it during a race! Then I came up to a steep hill climb section with large rocks called "bolder mountain." There were 3 or 4 trails up it, and I took the least steep trail?less than ? way up, I realized I should have started out in 4wd?OOPS! After nearly wetting my pants, I somehow managed to make it to the top without too much drama. I will say that trying to get any traction on those loose boulders on the side of that steep hill WHILE IN 2 WHEEL DRIVE gave me a new-found respect for the pro/a class sport riders who would later run that section!

With my nerves and confidence totally shattered at this point, I was certain that I could not safely race on this course. I have never felt this scared while riding my quad since the GNCC courses that I raced and I was definitely not up for something that technical and dangerous on this day. Feeling very embarrassed, I swallowed my pride and went back to the sign up table to pull out of the race?I was then told that they decided to take out the most technical/dangerous sections for the B class race?.WOW, that was a big relief and I happily agreed to stay in the race. It was still a technical and dangerous course, but much more doable without those extreme sections!

QUAD SET-UP:
No big changes to my TP700 for this race except that I replaced my set of 25" bighorns from last season with a set of alltaks. I recently got the alltraks mounted on some new ITP Type 5B rims, so I had no practice time on these tires before race day. I was a little concerned about the big side wall lugs on the Alltraks and how they would do in a tight woods race, but I?m happy to report that the alltraks didn?t cause any big problems for me in the trees. However, I did end up side ways more than once on the trails (usually on tight turns with very soft dirt)?at least once I turned sideways while on a steep, rocky down hill?then I backed up and pointed my quad down hill again only to discovered that I RAN OVER MY RIGHT FOOT and couldn?t get it free from my right front tire!!! So I drove forward slowly and pulled my foot free?good thing no one came up from behind me or I would have been in big trouble! I?m not sure if the sideways problem was caused by the tires getting too much side wall traction, not enuf traction in the turns or what??? I don?t recall having that problem with the bighorns. On the plus side, the alltracks had great traction in the soft dirt (on straight aways especially) and rocks too, but they also required a little bit more steering effort than the bighorns. So far I?m happy with the alltraks, and I?ll continue to use them this season to see how they do.

UTE CLASS:
When we lined up, I counted 13 quads in the utility class. That is the biggest turn-out EVER for our ute class, so I was very excited about the line-up. About half of the racers were new to XC racing or at least new to racing in the ute class. As I recall, the line-up included a brand spanking new (bone stock) Outlander 800 (only had 3 hours on it!!!), an Outlander 800 XT, a Griz 700, a Griz 660, a Honda Rincon 650, my TP700, a team green P700, a BF650sra, a P650, a Yamaha Bruin, a few Ranchers and another quad that I don?t recall right now.

START:
When I got to the starting line, I ended up taking a lousy spot next to the far left outside (the first turn was to the right). Someone other than the normal flag man was doing the start, and I think he forgot to point to our class to see if we were ready (we usually shake our heads yes at this point)?so it caught me off guard when I looked up and saw him raising the red flag and I was standing next to my quad! I quickly hopped back on my quad, grabbed the handlebars and got ready for the green flag. When the green flag went up, my quad started on the first try and off I went!

After losing to both Outy 800s in a friendly drag race earlier that morning, I was fully expecting those 2 Outys to win the holeshot. However, they were no where in site when I got there. Instead, I think it was the Team Green P700 coming from the far inside to win the holeshot and make the first turn. Someone on a red quad came up fast from the inside and suddenly darted past me at the first turn and over shot it by 20 feet or more, so I cut inside the turn and was approximately 3rd place coming out of the first turn.

LAP 1:
My lap 1 experience was nothing short of heaven for the first few miles until we came upon the first of many bottlenecks. In a nutshell, I worked my way from 3rd to 2nd going into the woods and after that, I was one of 3 quads (my TP700, the team green P700 and a BF650sra) battling for first place position during the first half of lap 1. Every time we came upon a small bottleneck of sport quads (many sporties had trouble stalling out on uphill climbs or getting high centered in the deep ruts, rocks, stumps, etc.) One of us 3 utes would always seem to find that magic opening thru the woods and make our own trail around the bottleneck of sport quads head of us. All 3 of us were in 1st place at one time or another during this first half of lap 1 and it was great fun!?.this is what XC racing is all about!

Anyway, we eventually hit some big bottlenecks going up and down steep hill climbs and in and out of small canyons. Nothing but sport quads as far as the eye can see (10 deep or more). Because we were often trapped in canyons with incredibly steep sides, there was no place to go around and stay within the rules for by-passing bottlenecks. So we waited and waited?sometimes 30 seconds?sometimes 2 minutes (which felt like forever). At one point, the P700 was right behind me while we were sitting on the side of a steep uphill climb and he asked me ?So, you read any good books lately? Seen any good movies?? LOL, yeah it was a bit frustrating to be stuck in those traffic jams in the middle of a race, but there?s nothing like a little humor to lighten things up!

LAPS 2 & 3:
As the race proceeded, I settled in to a comfortable 2nd place position during the first part of lap 2....but that comfort was short lived. Soon the BF650sra caught up to my rear bumper when I got stuck in yet another bottleneck of sport quads. So I had to step it up a little, and I could tell the BF650sra was putting the pressure on me. There was really no easy places to for him to pass me in these tight woods, so I knew his only chance to pass was if I made a mistake or if we hit another bottleneck and he found a way around before I did. Sure enuf, that bottleneck opportunity presented itself near the end of lap 2. By then 2 or more utes were right behind the BF650sra. Some sport quads behind me tried to make a trail to the right of the bottleneck ahead of us and a utility shot to the left of the bottleneck looking for an opening. Both were quickly stopped by trees and could not advance?that is when I found a small opening to the right and plowed my way thru the trees to freedom! LOL I raced hard for the next mile or two in hopes of maintaining my position head of the rest of the utes in my class. I was getting a little tired and hoping that the race would end at the end of lap 2. (I think my first lap took approx 38 minutes and the 2nd lap was not much quicker).

Unfortunately, I got the white flag at the end of lap 2 and was forced to keep up the pace for another lap! I found my groove on the 3rd lap and felt smooth and strong with little or no big problems on the course. With 2.5 months of no atv riding this winter, I was very surprised that fatigue was not a big problem for me on lap 3. Luckily, the frequent bottlenecks during the first 2 laps gave me a chance to rest.

RACE RESULTS:
There was a little confusion when they posted results and gave out plaques, but I?m pretty sure the order of the top 6 finishers in the ute class was the team green P700 (1st), my TP700 (2nd), the brand new Outy 800 (3rd), followed by a Yamaha Bruin, Rancher and BF650sra. In case you are wondering, YES...the brand new Outy 800 looked TOTALLY TRASHED after this race and the owner was not very happy about the damage! He said he rolled it twice during the race and he hit numerous trees. The front bumper was bent, plastics were all scratched and dented and he said the check engine lite was on the last half of the race! I felt bad for him and his quad...after all, it was his first XC race ever! Wow...what an expensive introduction!

I?m not sure about the order of the remaining utes b/c the top 6 utes finished 3 laps and the others finished earlier (completing 2 laps or less). Overall, I was very happy with my finish, especially since I almost chickened out and didn?t race at all! Mostly, it was just fun to get back on my quad and race again with my friends after the long winter break!!


Well, I hope you enjoyed my write-up! It was certainly nice to see the P700s take the top 2 spots in a large line-up that included 2 Outlander 800s.

Happy trails...[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]