Gasit Off Road Racing
Round 1 Race Report – Tarantula 100 @ Red Sand OHV, Alamogordo, NM
This is one of those things I was really excited about, yet dreading. I know that doesn’t seem to make sense, but with how things had gone for me with my first two attempts with WeBe. I was worried I’d have the same things happen to me again with Gasit. Happily, I was wrong.
I wasn’t really prepared for this trip, at all. I procrastinated getting the toy hauler ready until 4 days before I was going to leave. I should have given up a day of dirt riding, to focus on the trailer, but…. I didn’t, so here I was scrambling on Wednesday, when I found out the generator wouldn’t fire up. Also, the cables that I ordered to put a second battery on it was delivered to the wrong address. UPS is always doing that. Usually, it’s that I’m getting packages that aren’t mine, so I have to take them to the proper address. The one time that I really need something to show up, they get it wrong and give it to one of my neighbors. With overnight temps in the upper 30s/lower 40s, only one battery, and no generator, I knew that I was going to need to borrow a generator so I wouldn’t freeze at night. Thankfully, Harry lent me his really nice Yamaha generator for the weekend. It’s nice to be able to keep all the electronics charged. Without, my cell phone hotspot there wouldn’t have been any watching of Supercross on Sat evening. I also forgot about getting a piece of pipe for connecting the load distribution hitch, so there was a good bit of fussing getting that part hooked up so I could load the bike. All the little things added up and I ended up leaving town about 2 hours later than I wanted to. That just meant finding Michelle & Lee as well as setting up in the dark. It worked out, it always does. Not sure why I worry about it. Oh wait, it because if I get lost, backing that trailer out of the wrong spot in the dark is a huge pain.
Lee and Michelle were awesome, helping me find a great spot right with them, getting the trailer level, helping me keep track of Sable. Once I had the trailer organized and unloaded I was able to walk Sable around the pits to see just how things were laid out for registration. I figured I’d get to bed early to make up for the late nights during the week as well as, having to go into work early. Sable on the other hand, wanted to be out partying that night. She was the biggest brat, not letting me sleep. Fuss, fuss fuss, whin, fuss, fuss…. Until about 4 am. When I finally had enough, I took her out for a potty break and then snapped at her when she continued to fuss when we got back into the trailer. She was quiet after that. She isn’t a dumb dog, just stubborn and tad spoiled. I think she was picking up on my excitement/anxiety.
The next day I was up early, had some coffee, and started to get the bike ready for the practice/sighting lap. I like that they give you the day before to ride the loop to see what the hazards are. I should have known after the Webe Farmington lap to not even try the next day. Live and Learn. I hadn’t race with Gasit before so I needed to get to registration to get a transponder and find out about tech. Pretty painless process. It took all of 5 minutes to get it all done. After that was taken care of I put my new number plates on the bike. Jim would have been appalled at how I did it, but it does look good. They however are not going to last the whole season, there are part already starting to peal up on the edges. That sand is hard on things. Practice started at 11am. I figured since it went until 2pm I would wait a bit before I headed out. I didn’t want to be in with a mass bikes at the start. I am really glad that I was still at the first check point when a couple of bikes rolled up, or I wouldn’t have known about the poker run. I missed one of the stops, but I still had an okay hand. Wasn’t good enough or bad enough to win me any money, but it was still fun. I managed to make the whole lap all 22+ miles of it without failing or crashing so I’m going to say it was a great day. After that it was lunch and hanging out with the dogs at the pits. Luis showed up in time for dinner and supercross. I hit the hay early that night in attempt to make up for the lack sleep the night before.
Next morning was getting Luis up and set up, since he hadn’t been around the day before to take care of all the registration and tech. Rider’s meeting was at 8:30, the races were to start at 9am. I didn’t think they’d start on time, since the rider’s meeting ended at 8:50. Good thing I’d already gotten mostly dressed. My row was going to start at 9:11… yikes. I needed to hustle. The downside to parking away from the masses in the pit area.
I had wanted to film the practice loop, but forgot to put an SD card in… d’oh I made sure I had one in there for race day. I should have also made sure it had a full charge, since it crapped out with about ¼ of the second lap to go. I missed getting the second fall of the day on video, but since it was in the same spot, I guess it’s okay I missed recording it.
I managed to find my way to the grid. I should have asked for directions instead of riding in circles. I didn’t have to wait too long before my row was up. I can’t believe that I couldn’t get the bike started…. I think I was just about the last one off the line, even behind those that had to kick start their bikes. Yikes. I headed off, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake I made in Cuba. I took my time and got into the feel of things before I really started to try and push the speed up. I swear, that it seemed much faster when I was riding it than it appears when watching the video. The next few rows caught up, they went around me, it was fun to watch how some of them dealt with the whoops and deep sand. I was happy to see that the dirt was still damp and tacky, it helped keep the dust down too.
After a few miles I caught up to Michelle, she had a couple of tip overs, I just barely avoided running over her in the second one. I knew she was fine; she was picking up her bike. I can’t kick a bike over to save my life so I rolled along. She pasted me a short while later. I did catch up to the only women that I saw out on the practice lap the day before. I had caught up to 3 times during practice, but I would stop for the poker run stops, she didn’t. I figured I should be able to pass her and stay in front of her. I did for most of the first lap, but I had a lull in energy toward the end of the first lap after an “oh shyt” moment. She got around me, then I tipped over in a deep sand rut. I took a moment or 5 to get the bike off my leg. Picked it up, took a breather, then I started back on course.
I managed to get through the timing chute, then it was back to the race. The was a 5 mph area rolling up to and past the timing area, nice relaxing breather. I found some motivation after a couple of miles into the second lap. It was catching back up to the women I had pass me just before timing. It was just what I needed to kick it up a couple of notches. I get back around her, this time I wasn’t going to back things down. I decided it was time to push my comfort levels a bit more so that she couldn’t catch back up to me again. It worked too. I pushed my speed up in the sections that were really open and fast. I did have a few more “moments” than on the first lap, I still only had 1 tip over, in the same stupid spot. Argh. Oh well. I had one real heart stopping incident that I did catch on the video. It was a LOT scarier than the video shows.
I managed to get back to the timing chute, without getting pasted again. Yippee. I did almost tuck the front at the chute… I guess I really was more tired than I realized. Luis was already there; I wasn’t sure if we had to go on or if it was just the two laps. I was really pleased with myself for finishing and only tipping over the two times. The course wasn’t technically hard, just the sand and whoops, which can be hard. I’ve been trying to practice those more, I think it helped.
Once back to the pit, I was pretty happy that Sable had been a good pit pup. She was happy I was back. I just sat in the chair for a bit to relax, got the hot water going for a shower, started to get organized to pack up for my drive over to T or C for the evening. I didn’t have to work on Monday so I was going to take my time going home.