{"id":2555,"date":"2019-07-19T22:32:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/?p=2555"},"modified":"2019-08-20T20:55:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-20T20:55:52","slug":"mra-4hr-endurance-race-wknd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/2019\/07\/19\/mra-4hr-endurance-race-wknd\/","title":{"rendered":"MRA 4hr Endurance Race Wknd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This was the 9th<\/sup> 4 hr endurance weekend, I have\nbeen to 6 of them.  (1st<\/sup>, 2rd<\/sup>,\n3rd<\/sup>, 4th<\/sup>, 7th<\/sup>, & 9th<\/sup>) I\u2019m\nplanning on making it to the 10th<\/sup> one\u2026   It\u2019s a fun weekend, there are usually more\npeople who show up for this one even if they don\u2019t show up for any of the other\nrace weekends.  It\u2019s pretty cheap track\ntime, if you sign up for the titanium butt and if you can ride for the 4\nhours.     It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve made it up there\nthis year.  Looking like it\u2019ll be the\nonly time too. Just don\u2019t have the budget for it and I\u2019ve got too many other\nthings I\u2019d like to do.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t take the time to clean the trailer out really well\nafter my last outing for the Webe race. \nSo here was a fair amount of dust and dirt everywhere.  Since it was only going to me and the dog, I\nwasn\u2019t worried about it.  It really needs\na good scrubbing now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sable was pretty excited about the road trip; it took her\nalmost 3 hours to calm down.  She did the\nmost squeaking and talking that I\u2019ve ever seen her do.   Since\nI had the whole day to get there and the gates didn\u2019t open until 7, I took my\nsweet time in the am getting loaded up in the morning. I also made a couple of\nextra stops so she could get out for a walk. \nHaving her along does add time to my trips, but I don\u2019t mind it.  She is a good travel companion.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try as I might, I wasn\u2019t able to talk others into going up there for the race.  Out of the 19 other races, only one went up.  Ken.  He has his own rig, he was just there for the 4 hr race.  He was kind enough o let me share his pit under the carport.  It\u2019s much easier than dealing with a pop up in the winds there.  Sable just loves him!  She is a pretty good pit puppy.  She didn\u2019t being left in the trailer (during the really hot parts of the day, I left her in the trailer.  With pavement temps in the 140s, it was too hot for her). She didn\u2019t like the pen either, she preferred my hooking the retractable leash to the tool box, so she could explore a bit more.  I was pleased to see that she didn\u2019t bark or carry on while I was on the track.   Ken seemed to have as much fun with her as I did.  A couple of times I came back to the pits to find her missing only to learn that he had taken her with him into his trailer to watch tv or eat.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I struggled on Friday to get up to speed.  Saturday wasn\u2019t any better, after riding all day on Friday my right knee was sore.  I couldn\u2019t do more than 10 laps before it got to the point where it was really hurting.  I\u2019m thinking that the replacement it going to happen much sooner than I was hoping.  I have one more injection to do before I can really make that call.  The Doc keeps telling me the second one is where I should see the largest improvement in mobility and a decrease in pain.  It pretty hard to race when your right knee doesn\u2019t want to bend more than 90 degrees, and the track is predominantly right turns.  It\u2019s really just a whole lot of suckage.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
One of the closer passes of the 4 hr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t able to do more than an hour of the 4hr.  The knee started to really hurt, it was starting to rain, so I pulled off.  It was just a few minutes later that they red flagged it for the lightening that came with the rain.  On the upside, the weather moved out quickly and the rain really cooled it down.  I decided that I wasn\u2019t going back out,  I was on slicks and here was standing water all over the track.  I\u2019m sure that there was a line through most of the corners, but why risk it.  I\u2019ve done well in not crashing in 4 years.  Why go out and fall down? I do plenty of that with the dirt bike, I don\u2019t need to do it with the 675.  Instead, I cooled down, showered, and put new rubber on the bike for the two sprint races I had on Sunday.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Ray is one fast guy
Not sure I like the view with the camera on top of my helmet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the knee was such an issue, I decided I was going to\ndo everything I could think of to make my knee numb for the morning races.  I used, Advil, Tylenol, voltaren gel, and\nsome horse joint pain blocker.  It\nworked, even if I know it wasn\u2019t the healthy way to get that done.   Honestly, once I saw the lap times I could\nrun when I wasn\u2019t hurting I stopped caring. \nIt was easy too.  I was finally\nrunning the times I should be doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AmU race was a blast, I had a great start.  I wasn\u2019t going to admit it to Jim, but the\nadjustment he made to the clutch lever and the gearing change he talked me into\nwere just about perfect.  I had great drive\nout of the turns.  I figured out turn 6 finally,\nI knew I had been losing seconds there.   Finally, getting the entry sorted, helped me\nget amazing drive out of the turn.  So\nmuch so I was grabbing another gear coming through 7 to 8.  I was also finally getting where I needed to\nbe for turn 13, which is a pretty important one to get right.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

LOR, was the one I was really thrilled with!  I set a new personal best time.  I spent the first few laps, frustrated that I\nwas getting held up by a large group.  I\nthink it\u2019s the first time I managed to run with more than 1-3 other\nriders.  It was a blast and scary at the\nsame time.  Some of those riders, are\nreally erratic with their lines.  Once a\nfew of them got around the rider in front of them and I got around a couple\nothers.  I realized that it was Cindy\ndirectly in front of me.  Since I was\ngetting such good drive out of 6, through 7,  I quickly found out that she was parking her\nbike in turn 8, it was scary closing up on her that quick.  The next lap I decided to go up the inside of\nher, I over cooked it a bit too much and she out drove me out of the turn.  She was so much faster on the straight than I\nwas, it took me most of the back section to close the gap back up.  At the same time, I was trying to hold off\nthe rider behind me.  I had seen them\nshow me a wheel a few times, but I was determined I wasn\u2019t going to let them\nby.  They ended up getting me into 13 on\nthe second to last lap.  In all it was\nthe most fun I\u2019d had racing in years.  By\nthe end of the race my knee was talking to me, at least it wasn\u2019t screaming at\nme.  I\u2019m still surprised by the\nconfidence I get when I put new rubber on the bike. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to say the day ended as great as it started\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I loaded up, said goodbye to my race friends, and picked up\nmy hardware!   I made it to NM, I had\njust passed the Springer exit when I heard a BANG.  My very first tire blowout.  It was hot out, I was going a bit faster than\nI should have been, and I wasn\u2019t making as many stops as I did on the way\nup.    I still loath changing tires on\nthe side of the Interstate.   People don\u2019t\nover over, they go by way too close, way too fast and those trailer tires are\nstinking heavy!  My cute little jack\/\nleveler, broke when I was trying to get the trailer on it.  I had hoped it would work like the one I had\nyears ago for the horse trailer.  You\ndrive up on it and the other wheel is off the ground enough to change it.   NOT the case.  I still had to get the jack for the truck out\nand lift the trailer up a bit more in order to get the spare on the\ntrailer.   Just as I was tightening the\nlast lug nut, a nice man stopped and asked me if I needed help.  I got him to throw the blown out tire into\nthe back of the truck.  At least I didn\u2019t\nhave to lift that sucker.  I got back on\nthe road just as it was finally dark enough to need a flash light.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kept the speeds way down for the rest of the drive.  I can\u2019t park that sucker in the dark so I\nleft it on the street in front of the house. \nI parked in the morning when the neighbors were all gone, that sure\nmakes getting it into place much easier on me. Once in the driveway I unloaded\nthe tool box and bike.   In all I\u2019m still\nthrilled with the weekend!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/
The look I get when the road has lots of bumps.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was the 9th 4 hr endurance weekend, I have been to 6 of them.  (1st, 2rd, 3rd, 4th, 7th, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-racing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2685,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2555\/revisions\/2685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}