|   First race completed!! What a blast! | namaSSte
Aug 14, 2003 6:37 AM | | Thanks Geezer and Ironlegs, I did figure out the moto thing afterall (it is NBL not ABA) so it wasn't that bad. My race was easy since it was a small class last night (17 and up rookie). We had 6 riders so they simply ran 3 motos, total points. Scoring was easy as well as I placed third in all three motos and the 1st two guys (a 17 year old and a 20 year old!) placed 1-2 as well in all three. That put me third overall and reasonably pleased since my first time ever on a track occurred 20 minutes prior to the race. Yes, I was the true definition of a rookie. It was much tougher than I thought too. I figured my mtb racing experience would shine through and my conditioning would have me breezing around. WRONG! I'm sure it helped but my legs were SCREAMING after each moto. Talk about a nice piece of humble pie coming from being a competitve expert class mtb'er to huffin and puffin around the track. To make matters worse, my skills ont he track were, how should I say?, weak? More on that in a minute. Anyway, I spare you the blow by blow but I came out of the gates hard all the races and was able to pass at least one guy in each race. I was right there with the 1-2 guys but they dropped me every time we hit the whoops in the middle of the course. Oh well, I have a lot to learn but I'm anxious for the next time I get to try. I think some good practice time at the track is definitely in order.
My son also did his first race last night and this was the highlight of my evening. He was really stressed about racing but once things got going, he rode well. His class had 16 riders and he made the main! I was relly proud of him especially considering that he was racing on a street bmx bike modified for racing so it weighs about 33 lbs! He crashed hard in the main and finished 7th and was really disappointed but I tried to help him see that even making the main for his first time was a huge accomplishment. He's been to a few practices but this was his fifth time to be on a track so he, like me, was really a true rookie.
We gathered some hardware and hit the road for home after things wrapped up, talking the whole way about our experience. It was really great to share that with him and I gotta say, BMX'ing is defintitely a great way to spend some time having fun with the kids. I'm really glad we did it and hopefully, as our skills develop, we have even better results. Either way, one thing is for sure, I know we'll have fun! |
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