Texas Road Trip

Last weekend was the final round of the RMEC in Matador, Texas. To be totally honest, I was feeling a little bit under-prepared for this one. In the two weeks between our races in Milliken and Texas, I had four wisdom teeth removed, helped Erin through a knee operation, and worked over 100 hours! Erin and I left Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after Erin went under the knife. You may think she's crazy for coming with me, and you might be right, but just remember who we're dealing with. If I left her at home unsupervised, she probably would have wrapped her leg in duct tape and run a marathon. We made a comfy spot in the van for her, put on some country music, and hit the road.

Ten hours later, we found ourselves at the race site. As usual, you have to dedicate at least 2 hours of the afternoon to chatting with your friends that you haven't seen since the last race a couple weeks prior. It was dark before we knew it, and I still hadn't prepped my bike for the race..... We were exhausted and hungry, so we had some dinner and went to the hotel for some much needed rest.

The alarm went off at 5:30 Sunday morning, and we rushed to the race site with plenty of work ahead of us. I still needed to put on my computer, clean a leaky seal, and make some last minute adjustments. Luckily Ray Barnard was signed up on my row, and was counting on pacing off me all day, so he lent a hand in getting everything ready and getting me to the start, ha!

The day went pretty well overall. The test sections were generally short and high speed, and conditions were definitely dry, dusty, and slippery. I made a few small mistakes, but didn't have any big crashes and had a lot of fun. When the scores were finalized I ended up 14th overall. I was happy with my result considering the caliber of riders at the event and my lack of preparation in the prior weeks. I think I finished the season in 8th overall for the RMEC and will be riding in the AA class in 2010 for my fourth consecutive year WOO WOO!! Watch out for number 18A next season, I'll be back better than ever!!

Also note:

-Scott Bright beat me. I am not ok with this and will not let it happen again. He is at least 100 years old and this shouldn't be happening. He just had a faster bike....

-I accidentally left my phone at home. Erin's roomate (Laura Tingle) was checking my messages for me and answered a call from Billy Innis. They struck up a little conversation and now Tingle has a soft spot in her heart for Billy :)

-David Klein sucked on Erin's finger. Gross.