This past weekend was the second race in the Beech Mtn race series. I had a crash in my last race there, so I was looking to see what if… Chris Wyatt showed up this race and he and I practiced together all weekend, which was good. Chris is so talented and always pins it. I was happy to see that I was pulling him in sections. Even though the race track was the same, I believe it was a little tougher due to wetter conditions. I guess the mtn was full of water and springs were causing the loamy woods sections to be quite a bit harder. All during practice I wasn’t able to hit a few of the lines I wanted. I crashed yet again during Saturday’s qualifier, so I still didn’t know what I was capable of. However Chris qualified with a good time, so I thought I could put a good time down if I stayed up. Why sitting around waiting to race on Sunday, I figured I would just go ahead and try to hit my lines even though I hadn’t hit them all weekend. I figured nobody was going to win by playing it safe. Luckily I did hit them and I thought I was on for a burner run. However I no-braked into the G-Out before that last woods section and I pinch flatted my rear tire. It didn’t go all the way flat until the left-hand sweeper after the step down, but the last straight was all I could do to keep it up right and not washout on the of-camber slope. I ended up about a 1/2 second off the podium in 6th place. Again I am left with a what if situation. However I do know that 1st was out of reach for me. I just haven’t trained enough for that kind of pedaling. Maybe we’ll see what I can do come Sept. at the 3rd and final race.

Here I am hitting the “man huck”. My plan was to not make backside, yet case the lander to not build up a lot of speed. I still had a hell of a time stopping to get the next lefthand turn.