NMDRC Round 6, July 27 2014, Route 66 Desert Challenge Gallup, NM

Round 6 of the NMDRC series takes place in my hometown of Gallup NM. Typically, I haven't had very good luck at this race, the speed is usually there, the consistency is not. However its still one of my favorite races due to variety in terrain. The week prior, I helped prep the ohv park the race takes place in both on a utility quad (rake and shovel) and a tractor, that stuff is no joke, thank your race promoters and help them when you can, there is a lot of work that goes into this.

Last night I was kinda stressing out, as you might recall my last race did not go very well as I wound up hitting a tree quite hard. Eventually I just said forget it, I'm just going to ride and have fun, I'm not going to worry about finishing position.

This years course was 25 miles of high speed roads, tight sand washes, silt, g-outs and rocky up hill/down hills. So lap 1 goes down pretty good until we get into of the twisty sections through a silt bed, I'm chuggin along, just passed the 2nd guy in my class, and My front end suddenly washes out and I get thrown down, despite having wrap around handguards, my clutch lever gets bent, but no big deal really. So I took off again, finished lap 1 in good shape, pitted for fuel and with a go get em I took off on lap 2. First part was nice because the lingering dust from lap 1 had settled due to people settling into their own paces, I figured I was in 4th (I was correct) and just focused on hitting my lines cleanly and not making mistakes, something I managed to do, I must have been riding pretty good because about mile 6 I had pulled up to 3rd, and on a rather nasty, loose uphill he put the rear end over the edge (not a fall to his death type of deal) and got stuck. So I cruised around the rest of the 2nd lap, a local I usually lose to thats mainly a mx guy passed me, but we would enter the pits together, no need to stop for me, so as I began lap 3 I saw one of my "rivals" if you will, that usually beats me stopped and refueling, I cruised along by and got ready for what I thought was going to be a really intense final lap, when someone that you really want to beat is right on you, it doesn't matter how tired you are, you get standing and in attack position. We raced within 2 corners of each other until MM10, when he (later told me) caught a g out completely wrong and went down, I spent the rest of lap 3 just enjoying the course, lapping a couple of guys in C and not giving up any positions, riding to a 2nd place finish in lites amatuer, and for the first time, I managed to score a top 3 in overall amateur (2/47)
 
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Round 6 of the NMDRC series takes place in my hometown of Gallup NM. Typically, I haven't had very good luck at this race, the speed is usually there, the consistency is not. However its still one of my favorite races due to variety in terrain. The week prior, I helped prep the ohv park the race takes place in both on a utility quad (rake and shovel) and a tractor, that stuff is no joke, thank your race promoters and help them when you can, there is a lot of work that goes into this.

Last night I was kinda stressing out, as you might recall my last race did not go very well as I wound up hitting a tree quite hard. Eventually I just said forget it, I'm just going to ride and have fun, I'm not going to worry about finishing position.

This years course was 25 miles of high speed roads, tight sand washes, silt, g-outs and rocky up hill/down hills. So lap 1 goes down pretty good until we get into of the twisty sections through a silt bed, I'm chuggin along, just passed the 2nd guy in my class, and My front end suddenly washes out and I get thrown down, despite having wrap around handguards, my clutch lever gets bent, but no big deal really. So I took off again, finished lap 1 in good shape, pitted for fuel and with a go get em I took off on lap 2. First part was nice because the lingering dust from lap 1 had settled due to people settling into their own paces, I figured I was in 4th (I was correct) and just focused on hitting my lines cleanly and not making mistakes, something I managed to do, I must have been riding pretty good because about mile 6 I had pulled up to 3rd, and on a rather nasty, loose uphill he put the rear end over the edge (not a fall to his death type of deal) and got stuck. So I cruised around the rest of the 2nd lap, a local I usually loose to thats mainly a mx guy passed me, but we would enter the pits together, no need to stop for me, so as I began lap 3 I saw one of my "rivals" if you will, that usually beats me stopped and refueling, I cruised along by and got ready for what I thought was going to be a really intense final lap, when someone that you really want to beat is right on you, it doesn't matter how tired you are, you get standing and in attack position. We raced within 2 corners of each other until MM10, when he (later told me) caught a g out completely wrong and went down, I spent the rest of lap 3 just enjoying the course, lapping a couple of guys in C and not giving up any positions, riding to a 2nd place finish in lites amatuer, and for the first time, I managed to score a top 3 in overall amateur (2/47)

Ride for yourself, have fun, stay loose and the results will usually follow.
 
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