Gasit\nOff Road Racing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Round\n1 Race Report \u2013 Tarantula 100 @ Red Sand OHV, Alamogordo, NM<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is one of those things I was really excited about, yet\ndreading. I know that doesn\u2019t seem to\nmake sense, but with how things had gone for me with my first two attempts with\nWeBe. I was worried I\u2019d have the same\nthings happen to me again with Gasit. Happily,\nI was wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wasn\u2019t really prepared for this trip, at all. I procrastinated getting the toy hauler ready\nuntil 4 days before I was going to leave. \nI should have given up a day of dirt riding, to focus on the trailer,\nbut\u2026. I didn\u2019t, so here I was scrambling on Wednesday, when I found out the\ngenerator wouldn\u2019t fire up. Also, the\ncables that I ordered to put a second battery on it was delivered to the wrong\naddress. UPS is always doing that. \nUsually, it\u2019s that I\u2019m getting packages that aren\u2019t mine, so I have to\ntake them to the proper address. The one\ntime that I really need something to show up, they get it wrong and give it to\none of my neighbors. With overnight\ntemps in the upper 30s\/lower 40s, only one battery, and no generator, I knew\nthat I was going to need to borrow a generator so I wouldn\u2019t freeze at\nnight. Thankfully, Harry lent me his\nreally nice Yamaha generator for the weekend. \nIt\u2019s nice to be able to keep all the electronics charged. Without, my cell phone hotspot there wouldn\u2019t\nhave been any watching of Supercross on Sat evening. I also forgot about getting a piece of pipe\nfor connecting the load distribution hitch, so there was a good bit of fussing\ngetting that part hooked up so I could load the bike. All the little things added up and I ended up\nleaving town about 2 hours later than I wanted to. That just meant finding Michelle & Lee as\nwell as setting up in the dark. It\nworked out, it always does. Not sure why\nI worry about it. Oh wait, it because if\nI get lost, backing that trailer out of the wrong spot in the dark is a huge\npain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee and Michelle were awesome, helping me find a great spot right\nwith them, getting the trailer level, helping me keep track of Sable. Once I had the trailer organized and unloaded\nI was able to walk Sable around the pits to see just how things were laid out\nfor registration. I figured I\u2019d get to\nbed early to make up for the late nights during the week as well as, having to\ngo into work early. Sable on the other\nhand, wanted to be out partying that night. \nShe was the biggest brat, not letting me sleep. Fuss, fuss fuss, whin,\nfuss, fuss\u2026. Until about 4 am. When I\nfinally had enough, I took her out for a potty break and then snapped at her\nwhen she continued to fuss when we got back into the trailer. She was quiet\nafter that. She isn\u2019t a dumb dog, just\nstubborn and tad spoiled. I think she\nwas picking up on my excitement\/anxiety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day I was up early, had some coffee, and started to get\nthe bike ready for the practice\/sighting lap. \nI like that they give you the day before to ride the loop to see what\nthe hazards are. I should have known\nafter the Webe Farmington lap to not even try the next day. Live and Learn. I hadn\u2019t race with Gasit before so I needed\nto 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\ndone. After that was taken care of I\nput my new number plates on the bike. \nJim would have been appalled at how I did it, but it does look good.\nThey however are not going to last the whole season, there are part already\nstarting to peal up on the edges. That\nsand is hard on things. Practice\nstarted at 11am. I figured since it went\nuntil 2pm I would wait a bit before I headed out. I didn\u2019t want to be in with a mass bikes at\nthe start. I am really glad that I was still at the first check point when a\ncouple of bikes rolled up, or I wouldn\u2019t have known about the poker run. I missed one of the stops, but I still had an\nokay hand. Wasn\u2019t good enough or bad enough to win me any money, but it was\nstill fun. I managed to make the whole\nlap all 22+ miles of it without failing or crashing so I\u2019m going to say it was\na great day. After that it was lunch\nand hanging out with the dogs at the pits. Luis showed up in time for dinner\nand supercross. I hit the hay early\nthat night in attempt to make up for the lack sleep the night before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next morning was getting Luis up and set up, since he hadn\u2019t been\naround the day before to take care of all the registration and tech. Rider\u2019s meeting was at 8:30, the races were\nto start at 9am. I didn\u2019t think they\u2019d\nstart on time, since the rider\u2019s meeting ended at 8:50. Good thing I\u2019d already gotten mostly dressed. My row was going to start at 9:11\u2026\nyikes. I needed to hustle. The downside to parking away from the masses\nin the pit area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had wanted to film the practice loop, but forgot to put an SD\ncard in\u2026 d\u2019oh I made sure I had one in\nthere for race day. I should have also\nmade sure it had a full charge, since it crapped out with about \u00bc of the second\nlap to go. I missed getting the second\nfall of the day on video, but since it was in the same spot, I guess it\u2019s okay\nI missed recording it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I managed to find my way to the grid. I should have asked for directions instead of\nriding in circles. I didn\u2019t have to wait\ntoo long before my row was up. I can\u2019t\nbelieve that I couldn\u2019t get the bike started\u2026. \nI think I was just about the last one off the line, even behind those\nthat had to kick start their bikes. \nYikes. I headed off, I wasn\u2019t\ngoing to make the same mistake I made in Cuba. \nI took my time and got into the feel of things before I really started\nto try and push the speed up. I swear,\nthat it seemed much faster when I was riding it than it appears when watching\nthe video. The next few rows caught\nup, they went around me, it was fun to watch how some of them dealt with the\nwhoops and deep sand. I was happy to\nsee that the dirt was still damp and tacky, it helped keep the dust down too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a few miles I caught up to Michelle, she had a couple of tip\novers, I just barely avoided running over her in the second one. I knew she was fine; she was picking up her\nbike. I can\u2019t kick a bike over to save\nmy life so I rolled along. She pasted\nme a short while later. I did catch up\nto the only women that I saw out on the practice lap the day before. I had caught up to 3 times during practice,\nbut I would stop for the poker run stops, she didn\u2019t. I figured I should be able to pass her and\nstay in front of her. I did for most of\nthe first lap, but I had a lull in energy toward the end of the first lap after\nan \u201coh shyt\u201d moment. She got around me, then\nI tipped over in a deep sand rut. I took\na moment or 5 to get the bike off my leg. \nPicked it up, took a breather, then I started back on course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I managed to get through the timing chute, then it was back to the\nrace. The was a 5 mph area rolling up to\nand past the timing area, nice relaxing breather. I found some motivation after a couple of\nmiles into the second lap. It was\ncatching back up to the women I had pass me just before timing. It was just what I needed to kick it up a\ncouple of notches. I get back around\nher, this time I wasn\u2019t going to back things down. I decided it was time to push my comfort\nlevels a bit more so that she couldn\u2019t catch back up to me again. It worked too. I pushed my speed up in the sections that\nwere really open and fast. I did have a\nfew more \u201cmoments\u201d than on the first lap, I still only had 1 tip over, in the\nsame stupid spot. Argh. Oh well. \nI had one real heart stopping incident that I did catch on the\nvideo. It was a LOT scarier than the\nvideo shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I managed to get back to the timing chute, without getting pasted\nagain. Yippee. I did almost tuck the front at the chute\u2026 I\nguess I really was more tired than I realized. \nLuis was already there; I wasn\u2019t sure if we had to go on or if it was\njust the two laps. I was really pleased\nwith myself for finishing and only tipping over the two times. The course wasn\u2019t technically hard, just the\nsand and whoops, which can be hard. I\u2019ve\nbeen trying to practice those more, I think it helped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once back to the pit, I was pretty happy that Sable had been a\ngood pit pup. She was happy I was\nback. I just sat in the chair for a bit\nto relax, got the hot water going for a shower, started to get organized to\npack up for my drive over to T or C for the evening. I didn\u2019t have to work on Monday so I was\ngoing to take my time going home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gasit Off Road Racing Round 1 Race Report \u2013 Tarantula 100 @ Red Sand OHV, Alamogordo, NM This is one […]<\/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":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dirt-bikes","category-racing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752","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=2752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2753,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions\/2753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diomederacing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}