 First off, I have to add onto the comments that were put forth by the
other members of CR.
Thanks to my dad (Dr. Smith...how people found out he was a Dr is beyond
me), Dave, and the rest of the White Mice Division for helping our
two-person team out during the race.
Oh, and thanks to Rob for thinking that doing a two-four race as a
two-person team would be a good idea :-)
As for a race report, I'll start it off, and if Rob has any words of
wisdom I'm sure he'll add his two cents!
Well, the race, as we all should know, starts off as a LeMans start.
Meaning you run a couple hundred yards to your bikes. The kicker was
the addition of a 1 mile prologue lap to help spread out the teams even
further.
I had the fortune and pleasure of starting off the race with Jeff of
team WMD (White Mice Division). Toeing the line 13 minutes before the
race I realized that going to the bathroom 3 times that morning still
hadn't emptied my bladder. At any rate, the gun went off, and on the run
I went. Yadda Yadda, run run, blah blah, prologue prologue...and the
race was on.
Rob and I traded laps for the first 11 hours. Each lap we were pulling
further and further into the lead. Dave would come back and say
something like "Dude, you're like in third place now...HAHA just kidding
you're up by like 30 minutes now". Not too funny. But yeah, Rob and I
were pulling really consistant laps for the first half of the race.
I know Rob had some technicals during the first half of the race. Maybe
two flats and a spinning front wheel. It was kinda funny to think that him
and I were on a "team" since I saw him for a total of about 10 minutes
the whole entire race. We'd kinda chat it up between laps as the race
went on, talked about some stratagies through Stacy or other members
that were hanging out at our campsite.
Oh, and I had the fun of thinking my bike was stolen about 1/2 through
the race. As darkness fell, so did some guy into a bridge made for the
race. He had broken his leg and was taken away to the hospital. One of
his buddies though he saw his bike in the transition area so he took it
away to their campsite. However, it wasn't his buddy's bike! IT WAS MINE!
So I'm waiting for Rob to come back from his lap, and when I got the baton,
I turn to find my bike missing!!! We search and didn't find anything! So,
Dave runs back, gets my backup bike and off I go on my Trek. Dave et al
head off to figure out what happened to my bike and I was lucky to have a
nice clean bike at our campsite upon my arrival!! *PHEW* The announcers made an
announcement that had caught the attention of the person who
accidentially took the bike. Hence we were able to get the bike back
without too much trouble!
We hit up the double laps at around 11 with me starting off doing two
laps in a row, then Rob, then me again, and finally Rob doing his
last double laps from around 6:00-8:00.
As dawn arrived, we were figuring we could stop at 11 and still be 100%
sure we had first place locked up. At this point were about 2 laps ahead
of everyone else, so we really didn't have too much to worry about and
took it relatively easy. But, according to the rules, since Rob had come
in before 11, I had to go out in order to be an official finisher or
something. I still don't understand it, but I went out for a final lap.
:-)
Earlier in the race, having come off a double lap rest, I decided to
push it a little and see what I had left in my legs. I pulled a :57 lap
time. Jeff had found out and was determined to beat my lap time! He did,
pulled a :56! Well, this last lap, I decided to let it all hang
out...cranked and cranked, and raced to the line to arrive with a
:54. I told Jeff, and well, let's just say the look on his face was
anything but joyous since it was his final spin around the course :-)
Jeff stepped up to the challenge of the :54 by pulling a :52!! Rock on!
Gotta love it!!! (**editors note, nathan actually rode a 52, while jeff did a 53 - gotta love that!**).
All, in all, Rob and I finished in 1st with 23 laps. A full 2 lap lead
over 2nd and 3rd place. 195 miles total ridden between the two of us.
Again, thanks to all the folks who helped us out along the way, and to
Rob for him doing his first, and probably last, two-four race!
.nathan.
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