Wednesday, October 21, 2009

USA-All Charity Race, Price Utah August 15-16, 2009

OK, so I've been a complete slacker in getting the site updated. Work has pretty much monopolized my life since August and justifying the time to update the site has been difficult.

It's time for the important things in life, family, kids, and riding.....work sucks.

The Charity race in Price was a lot of fun. Myself (Mike) and my 3 boys (Josh, Kobee, and Benji), and Chad Bailey and his son Karson made the trek to Price for the Saturday desert race. This event was a charity race raising money for the Utah Shared Access Alliance (USA-All) to raise money for the battle in preserving our public lands and riding areas. It was a totally worthy cause and one we were happy to support. It also happened to be a USRA points event.



Benji in the 65 class (Dave Turner Images)

The minis started in the morning and the FAST Racing crew had an awesome showing!! Karson Bailey finished second overall mini Novice, Kobee finished first Schoolboy, and Benji finished first 65B, and second overall 65. Benji's bike was running like crap again and I was praying that he would even make it one loop. He came in off the first loop in second place and held that position for another loop with a bike that would hardly stay on the throttle and required a lot of finesse. The boys all really enjoyed the course and thought the motocross track was cool.

Karson

Kobee

Josh raced his first "big bike" race.....sort of. They had the Mini Experts race with the Amateurs. They had to be the last wave off the start line so unfortunately they were eating dust for most of the first loop, but he was doing great and had worked up to mid-pack after the first loop of the course. After going out on the second loop it seemed to take him a really long time to come in. My intuition was correct and when he finally made it in, he was riding in "spode" mode. Apparently he hit a big g-out on the desert course and rung his bell pretty good and it took him a while to get his composure and get going again. As all racers know, it's difficult to bounce back from a good crash. After some coercion, he decided to go out and finish his race. Josh is learning a lot of life's lessons through the school of hard knocks out on the race course this season and will need to continue to develop that mental maturity and persistence that is a characteristic of all great racers.

Josh loved the EnduroCross section.

I had taken my bike down and was considering racing, but the Experts weren't starting until 4:00 in the afternoon and with Josh's situation, the chewed up and dusty course, and long drive home that night, I wussed out and just packed up and called it a day.

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped to put on such an event. It's a great and worthy cause and one that I hope is repeated next year.