Here's my XC race write-up. Hope you enjoy!


THE TRACK

The race was held in Plain Dealing, LA at a 300 acre property called Cypress Creek MX. This was the first race that I ever attended out-of-state, and it took me approximately 5.5 hours to get there.

The track was 6.6 miles long, and mostly consisted of very tight virgin trails thru the woods. This property is normally operated as a MX track, so it had a long MX section with several jumps and high bermed turns. The XC track began at the regular starting line of the MX track and after hitting several jumps and turns, it exited into the woods...from there, we ran thu very tight and twisty virgin trails with a few short straight aways here and there. After approximately 5 miles of tight wooded trails, we exited to an open field where we zig-zagged around some small trees for about 1/2 mile (this was the most fun part for me!)...and then it dumped back onto the MX track to complete the lap (total MX track was probably 1 mile).

The weather was sunny and hot (my truck's outside temp gauge read 101 degrees right after my race ended!) and the track was incredibly dry and DUSTY! The track itself was mostly flat and not very technical, so the big challenges were dealing with very tight trails, lots of sharp roots, the MX track and all the DUST through-out the entire track!!!


MORNING PRACTICE

I arrived at the track at 7am, and did a few practice laps until the 8:30 am riders meeting. Near the end of my 2nd practice lap, I punctured a rear tire (Maxxis all tracs). Not sure, I think it may have punctured in the virgin woods (sharp stumps/roots sticking up everywhere). After borrowing a tire plug from a fellow racer, I repaired my tire and aired up again. I'm just glad this happened during practice and not during the race!


THE UTE CLASS

Because this race is further distance away from most racers (its one of the rare races located out-of-state), our Ute Class line up only had 8 quads for this race, and it including 7 regulars and 1 newbie. The regulars include a Renegade 800 driven by a GNCC Pro racer (who rode in a truck all night long from Saturday's GNCC race in NC just to compete in our local race on Sunday...Props to him for the effort), an Outy 800, my Twin Peaks 800, 1 Grizzly 700, 1 Honda 400 (driven by Smokin' Willie), 1 Yam. Wolverine 350 (actually its bored 2mm over with a FST piston) and a Eiger 400. The "newbie" racer is actually a regular on a sport quad class...but his quad was broken, so he decided to race in our ute class on a Polaris 800! When I first saw the Polaris on the line-up, I remember thinking "Oh my gosh!...he's going to race THAT HUGE quad in the tight woods! lol" It was cool to see half of the ute class line-up racing on an 800cc quad!


THE START

Because of the dust, I was hoping to get into the woods ahead of as many folks as possible...only 1 thing stood in my way and that was 1/2 mile of MX jumps! lol I'm not big on hitting MX tracks with my big quad, so I just roll over them. The start of our race was in deep sand and approximately 70 feet or so to the first (left hand) turn. I lined up on the far left and the renegade 800, outy 800 and polaris 800 were all on the far right side of the line-up. They waived the green flag and off we went! I started off in 2wd b/c I didn't want to hit the MX jumps in 4wd...so my tires spun badly off the line...pretty soon it was me and the Renegade headed towards the first turn and we both arrived at the same time...and we made the turn side by side.

As soon as we made the turn we faced a large jump and I let off the throttle on the approach, whereas the Renegade stayed on the gas and hit. After rolling a few jumps and making several turns on the MX track, I was finally passed during a medium sized jump by the "newbie" on the Polaris 800. Before I reached the woods, 2 other races (Outy 800 and Honda 400) also passed me...so that meant I was EATING DUST SANDWICHES FOR LUNCH! lol


LAP 1

WOW...did I mention it was DUSTY! The woods were worse b/c the trees blocked the wind and the dust just hovered in the trails. It was so thick, I had to slow down and stop at first and let the Outy ahead of me get a little distance between us. I then tried my best to dodge trees blindly...but it was not easy. The dust was so thick that I often could not see the trees with left/right markers on them until I almost hit them! lol Same story with other racers in the woods...I would occasionally run up behind a sport quad that I had no idea was on the trail until I saw him about 10 feet in front of me! Keep in mind this was a bright and sunny day at 1pm!


BLOWN TURNS EVERYWHERE

Several riders (myself included) blew past many of the turns and then had to back up or turn around...one spot about 1.5 miles into the course was especially bad b/c someone blew past the turn and knocked down the neon tape on the first lap and that marker stayed down untl the last lap. During my first 2 laps, I would be picking up speed on the short straight-away right before that turn with the downed marker tape...and suddenly see threw the thick dust a sport quad coming straight towards me and then it would duck back into the woods at the turn (where he should have gone instead of blowing the turn). Seeing this happen twice at the same turn was a little unnerving to say the least...thought I was going to be in a head-on collision both times! lol


TREE DODGING

I somehow managed to avoid hitting most of the trees, but not all. I bounced off or rolled over some smaller trees from time to time, but the big ones stopped me cold in my tracks! Near the end of the 2nd lap, I nailed one on my front bumper while making a sharp left turn (was going slow at the time) and I said to myself, "I'm going to remember where this tree is for the next lap." Guess what? On the very next lap, I hit the SAME TREE! lol This time, I hit it a little harder and bent my front bumper back about 3 or 4 inches.


LAPS 2 THRU 4

Because the trails were so tight in the woods, it was very difficult to pass anyone in the woods. Most of the people I passed were sport quads and that mostly happened on the MX track or in the open field just before the MX track...it was difficult to find any place to pass in the tight woods While I'm not a big fan of racing my big quad on MX tracks, I have to admit it was fun to power slide around long sweeping turns at 35 to 45mph (yes, I actually looked down at my speedo on these turns b/c I was curious). However, I know I lost a lot of time on the MX track b/c I didn't hit the big MX jumps at speed. On the other hand, I tried to make up the time in the open field and in the woods (I had a good rythem going in the woods during the last 2 or 3 laps).


CONCLUSION

The Renegade took 1st (as usual), the Outy 800 took 2nd, the Honda 400 tooks 3rd, and I took 4th. I heard the Polaris 800 got hung up between 2 trees and couldn't get it free for quite a while! lol Not sure if that was the reason, but he ended up finishing last.

Despite the long drive, intense heat, thick dust, flat tire, bent front bumper and only finishing in 4th place, I had a lot of fun and it was great to bang bars with my racin' buddy's again.

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