Idaho City 100 - May 30, 2009

The Idaho City 100 (ISDE Qualifier) is the most looked forward to event of the year for Mike Knight and several other members of FAST Racing. This year was particularly exciting because Mike was going to to have the opportunity to ride it with his son Josh. Josh is 13 and has been attending this event with his Dad as a spectator for 8 out of the last 9 years. It was finally his turn to be a participant rather than a spectator.

Mike & Josh prepare bikes for impound on Friday night.


Mother Nature wasn't being very kind though and the forecast was for hot and dusty conditions. Two years ago we experienced similar conditions and it was brutal. This year turned out to be just a notch below that as far as challenging conditions.

Mike, Josh, and Jarrod Garr were all on the same minute. Here they are leaving from the Red Bull Banners in the pits, ready for 112 miles of singletrack fun!




The course started out great and Josh was doing incredible. Big guys were "in his way" and he was eating up the challenging terrain without any difficulty. The first Special Test arrived and Josh took off with Mike a few seconds behind. About 2/3rds of the way through the test, Mike came around a corner and found Josh laying in a pile of sticks unable to get his bike moving. This burned a lot of time and caused a lot of frustration. Back on the course and a few more burned corners and the first test was over without great results. Josh settled down and continued to ride to the first check with several minutes to spare.

Josh


Mike


On to the next section and second special test. This time Josh adhered to the "slower is faster" principle and got through the test and section without issue. Although not riding as fast, he was riding smoother.

The course started to "toughen up" though as we rode some more southern exposed ridgelines with minimal to no tree cover. The heat alluded to earlier began to take its toll. Josh was slowing and bottlenecks and downed riders in some of the technical sections began to present some challenges. We rolled into the next check (gas check) 5 minutes late after battling the heat and severe dust from bottlenecks. Josh asked how far we had gone and when he realized we had only gone 35 miles (and had almost 80 to go still), it really deflated his spirits.

Since we were already late to the check, we took our time, drank some water, gassed up, and then headed out.

Another 3-4 miles into this section, we came upon a severely rutted, rocky, and exposed ridgeline trail that went straight up, and up, and up. Bikes were littered all over the trail and before long, both Mike and Josh's bikes were boiling over. Bikes weren't the only things boiling over, and by this time, Josh was "baked". He was not feeling well and concluded he could not finish. We rolled into the next Check, took the C course bailout, and rode back to the pits. Josh was frustrated with himself, but was very sick and could not go any further. It was a difficult lesson in both the mental and physical challenges that occur in a national caliber event such as this. There is a reason we witnessed only 1 other mini bike attempting it on Saturday out of 300 riders. We were all proud of Josh for his efforts.

Now, on to the other FAST racing team members. "Fathers" Cory Pincock and Travis Tams of FAST racing were also racing on Saturday and they both did awesome!!!

Cory, fast and smooth as always, finished out Day 1 as 1st overall A rider and a Gold medal. Congratulations Cory!!!!

Travis finished as well, competing in his first ever Idaho City as an A rider. He dropped a few course points but otherwise performed great in the special tests and earned a Bronze medal in the A4 Vet class.

Results for both days are here:
http://www.moto-tally.com/brr/Results.asp

We will definitely be back next year and are already counting the days.

Here's a bit of video from Sunday morning from the Start as well as the Grass Track.