We arrived in Calgary early afternoon Wednesday and my buddy JR met me at the track to pick me up. We got back to his place and I settled in and met his roommates. I spent the afternoon just chilling with them, and then in the evening I went on a street bike ride around downtown with Syko. It was really cool, very scary but a great way to experience the city. That evening we met up with the CMRC crew for a fun night on the town. Afterwards we headed back to the track for a bonfire. It was after 3:30 am by the time we left, and we had to jump over the gate that was locked. This resulted in me ripping my back pocket off the brand new jeans I was wearing. What I didn’t realize initially, was that my ID had been in my back pocket. When I got back to the house to put it away, I couldn’t find it. The next morning Jody texted me that he had found it in the driveway. Lucky for me!
Thursday Syko, Ryan and myself headed down to the track to help out the track crew a little bit. While at the track, my phone decided to stop working. Later that night when we headed to Bell to find out what I could do, I was told I had to wait until I was back in Ontario to send it away to be fixed. So I was stuck with no cell. We hung out at the house and watched some movies for the evening.
Friday morning we woke up early and picked up my brother from the greyhound station downtown Calgary. While the guys worked my bro and I caught up on all his stories from being in the bush for the past two months. We went out for dinner, where Blaze pretty much ate out the place.
Saturday came race day!! The track looked so awesome. It is located on the side of a hill right in the business district of Calgary. You can see the whole city skyline in the background of the track. Jocelyn, Blaze and myself walked down the hill to Tim Horton’s for some breakfast. The bottom corner is literally steps from Tim Horton’s it was so crazy!! Practice went well, I felt good on the track. Then we had to sit around for pretty much the whole day as we were last moto. Scorgie and Syko came over to the track and cheered me on. First moto my brother pushed my bike up to the line, and we picked a mint spot by the box. Then as the 30 board was about to go up, we were told that the ladies A class had to start on the left side of the box. I ended up getting stuck far inside in a really bad spot and was really nervous about it. Then, the 30 board flipped to 5 and dropped right away, there was no sideways board, and no warning. This resulted in a terrible jump, and thus a terrible start. I was able to finish with an 8th overall for the day though which helped me get some confidence going for the nationals the next day.
Sunday came national day. Riders meeting was its traditional 7:30am, and then we sat around and watched the pro practices until it was our turn to run. Practise was muddy and sloppy and there were crazy ruts already. The final corner before the finish was an uphill off camber that developed only a single rut in it. Towards the end of practise one girl crashed, and half the class was lined up waiting in the rut behind her. I took one look at it and said screw it, and blasted through the mud up the hill.
First moto came around and I told my brother to try his luck picking a pin for me, as I usually pick bad ones, and sure enough 28th gate pick. I got a pretty decent gate spot though and was pumped to go. I had an excellent jump out of the gate, and was off the concrete pad in a blink. I was charging into the first corner and as I hit the brakes, I just started to slide. They had just watered the track during maintenance. I missed the corner and ended up losing a lot of spots but kept on going, eventually finishing in 21st place. I was so tired when I finally pulled off the track, my brother could see it in my face as I could hardly breathe. He dumped a bottle of water over me and hopped on for a ride back to the pit. The ruts were so deep and the track was really rough. I was pretty disappointed with myself, and wish I had of known more in advance I was going to have this opportunity.
Second moto I knew I was going to be tired, I downed tons of water and ate lots of fruit and spent most of the time in the shade to rest up for it. I probably went to the bathroom 10 times between motos I was pounding back so much water. I got a gate very close to where I was before and had another great jump off the concrete start. I had a better start, but again faded into the background. I was able to finish up with a 19th in the second moto, good enough to gain a few valuable points. Overall I was disappointed with myself but was really excited to have experienced this, and be coming home with 10 points heading into the eastern portion of the national tour.
Sunday night we headed over to the blackfoot inn to meet up with Billy, Mark and Jody. We went over to the roadhouse to celebrate the end of round 2, and Mark was turned away due to his ID being worn out. We ended up walking around downtown Calgary and coming across a small little bar where we sat down for a few drinks. As the night wound down, we said our goodbyes and made our plans to meet up when the series came to Gopher Dunes in a few weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment