The first races of the season was a blast. It was the 6 hours of Temecula at Vail lake on Saturday and the SoCal Enduro on Sunday. My mom and I left our house in the RV at 6:30 Friday night and the traffic yet again challenged us to a 3 hour drive. As I was unloading I saw Coach Jason doing a final course check and he came in and we were able to catch up before settling in for the night. It was a good thing because I thought I was doing 6hr solo and Coach told me that I was doing a team with Ryan Landis! I was very happy to hear I was doing a team. Ryan is new to our Devo Team and I knew we’d have a fun day.
The next morning I got up early to do my bike check and got everything ready for the day. I had my breakfast and headed up to the pits to meet up with Ryan. I saw Tuner Conway and Blake Wray who are close friends of mine, I haven’t seen them for a few months so it was great to see them face to face and catch up. After a quick conversation with them I went back to my RV and got kitted up. It was decided I was going to do the first lap. I was warming up around the start and as I was doing another lap the start was literally filled within seconds and I got stuck in the fifth row. There were so many people there and many were pushing in from the sides, it started to become chaotic. I was a little upset but it is what it is and I had to work up from there. Right from the start of the parade lap I fought to gain some spots. As soon as we hit the dirt I sprinted and grabbed more spots going into a hairpin left turn where it was almost a dead stop. After that we went back into the venue and started the true lap. I was able to get into around the top 15/20. The rest of the lap was just pedal to the metal. At the end of the lap we had to do Marine Corps hill, that had a makeover from the rain a few weeks prior, and this made it so much faster and easier. I was able to finish my first lap in about 38 minutes. Then I handed it off the Ryan and had about a 30 minute break to rest and have some food and cold water. I saw Ryan heading up the boogaloo climb and knew it was about 10 to 15 minutes to get back to the venue and I started to warm up. He came in and I was off for my second lap. There was still a lot of traffic that I had to pass which was a pain because I felt like I was catching them at the worst spots and sometimes I had to get off and run. About half way through the lap I noticed that someone was pacing off of me and I thought, whatever, and kept on trucking. As we got to the boogaloo climb he was still on me and sprinted past me at the top, I used him for a bit but in the end let him go to save my legs for my other laps to come. I came in and it was one of my fastest laps of the day. The heat was starting to come on so I really had to make sure I had plenty of water. My 3rd and 4th lap were almost identical which I'm happy about because that showed me I was pushing just the right amount to stay consistent. Unfortunately, when Ryan was coming in from his fourth lap he was cramping super bad and I saw the second place team come in before him. We had lost the lead we had all day and the other team got about a minute and half lead on us and I had put everything I had to put everything I had left into my 5th lap. I pushed through every corner and fought very hard I was able to drop the gap a little by the time I got to the boogaloo climb but I still had to push hard but the chance was getting smaller and smaller for me to catch up. By the time I hit Marine climb for the last time I knew I wouldn't be able to catch him but the legend that is Turner Conway was able to gap the team he was fighting against to get the win in is category and we finished the lap together which will probably be a moment I'll never forget.
At the end of the day Ryan and I worked hard and were able to get second. I know I have a tremendous amount of work to do but overall I was proud of my ability to remain consistent and pull out my fastest lap of the day on the final lap. The rest of the day I hung out with Turner, Blake, Maddy, Margie, Lauren and Preston and a few parents around the fire just telling fun stories and making memories.
The next morning was enduro which is always a fun day. Same as the day before I had breakfast and headed up the the venue. I met up with Turner and we went up before the start of the day and rode one of the stages so we at least knew one of the stages so we weren't going in completely blind for the whole day. After a little rest at the bottom we headed back up to do the first stage of the day. We were one of the first ones to get up there so we were able to go, no wait, which is always a plus when you are doing enduro. I was able to fly down clean and easy on the first run, which was Stage 3 for the day. After resting and messing around at the pump track we moseyed up the climb for the second run. This one was a completely different story. It was Matco which I did a few weeks prior on my hard tail for the Devo camp but it was anything but smooth and in one of the last turns I fell and lost at least a minute trying to get up and running again and had to find my computer that fell off costing me more time. So after the run I was pissed, but I had to get it outta my mind on focus on the last run of the day. Turner and I had some quesadillas for lunch before heading up for our last run of the day. We saw Maddy, Margie and Maddy’s dad, Brian, and we stayed with them and talked on the way up. At the top we looked over a few lines to make sure we would have a good start. As I started I felt clean and pretty fast but as soon as I got past the first rocky section and into the turns it was literally and figuratively down hill. I was coming into the turns too fast and having to break super hard and even got sent a little off trail at one point. To top it all off, I dropped my chain on the last final sprint and I decide to let it hang and pump into the finish. I don't know if I saved or lost time for not putting it back on. In the moment I thought it would be the same amount of time. For the results I got my lucky number 7 which is the number I always seem to get when I do enduro. In the end it was an awesome weekend. It was great to catch up with my racing family and friends.
This weekend has showed me that I have my work cut out for me. Perris is coming fast and I look forward to seeing everyone there.
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