Memorial Day Weekend 2010

Going into this weekend I was extremely excited to head out to Iowa with the guys and race. I have never done the entire thing, “thing” being Burlington Road Race, Snake Alley, Melon City, and Quad Cities. I had only done the latter two of the four.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the Burlington Road Race but was extremely excited to hear that it had a rolling enclosure for the course. I am guilty of not reading about races and going in blind on distance/course description. We rolled off pretty calm and I made it a point to stay at the front as much as I could which was surprisingly easy. Two guys were off right from the gun and had a few minute gap on the field. Will decided that the race was extremely boring (which it was) and attacked to bridge up to the other two guys with no one following. He did make it up there and stuck it out for a well deserved third, but not with the two original guys. About 15 miles to go Hogan flatted and Ryan got a skewer sent through his front wheels spoke. I saw him throw his hand up and seeing that the wheel truck was rather far back I stopped and gave him my front wheel. It was another three minutes before I received another wheel and the field was long gone. I strolled in those last 15 by myself.

Coming home from dinner Friday evening Mike wanted to show us the snake, well for those of us that hadn’t seen it. I was honestly amazed by it, we drove up it and could tell I would be in for a brutal day the next day. We toed the line with pretty solid starting spots being 20-24…Although that didn’t help me enough. When Sherer and John told me I needed to sprint all out from the gun to get up to the front they were not kidding, I definitely did not put in the effort I should have and was behind the split in the field after the first/second lap. It continued to splinter and I was pulled 11 laps in of the 20. It was definitely an eye opening first Snake Alley experience.

After the Snake

Sunday we finally had a race that I had done once before last year as a 3. I didn’t feel to hot at the beginning of the race and it took me an extremely long time to get up to the front. It wasn’t necessarily a hard pace but my body just was not all there. I finally got up front(ish) towards the last quarter of the race hoping to help out however I could but finally noticed Sherer was not in the field anymore, he had taken a spill with two to go. I was not in the best position going into the last lap and ended up taking 26th for the day while Ryan killed it in the break for 5th place.

Check out the white hands

This was my third time doing Quad Cities, twice prior as a three. I was very happy that the rain had moved through because I was not looking forward to doing this race with eight turns in the rain. I had an awesome starting spot all the way in the back. This is where the younger generation does not know of this so called post office where your supposed to mail in registration? What happened to the whole inter-tubes sort of deal with registering online? Anyways, it made it a rather big chore to get up front. About 15 laps in I finally made it up there and that was the last time I truly saw the front. This was unfortunate because it was much easier up there than sitting 20-30 wheels back. I’m not sure what it was but I have to be much more aggressive and never get comfortable where I’m at because this was brought to my attention this weekend, once that happens you go backwards. After lots of jockeying for position and some sketchy sprint point laps I failed to get up front on the final laps and rolled in for 40th after a few blazing fast last few laps.

This weekend was definitely good exposure to faster racing and what is in store for TOAD. One thing I did want to get up here was Sunday evening at the lodge we stayed at there was a piano in the main area for the lack of a better term…Anyways I walked out there to see Danny and Sherer watching the person playing. It was Justin (our awesome videographer intern), and he is sick on the piano. You can’t see anything with the video below but you can at least hear him…This weekend was a lot of fun and I cannot thank Mike Ebert and Billy Dwyer enough for making all of this happen, it is definitely a great group of guys and is always a great time hanging out with them with all the shenanigans. Watch out for the webisodes Justin is putting together for us, there should be one coming out shortly.

He did a lot of messing around for the two minutes I shot but overall he played for about a half hour.

P.S. If you want to read something actually a bit entertaining with a good writing style head here.