Jennifer Dilworth Hynes — mtbchk

After a good pre-ride on Saturday, the trails at Devil’s Ridge in Sanford, NC were in great shape.  There had been some rain earlier in the week, but the trails were mostly dry.

The race begins by riding through the moto-cross track.  Lots of big MX jumps and rollers, then into the woods, for a roughly 5-mile long trail.  It’s not too technical, and not too hilly.  It is tight in spots, but there is nothing really notable.  For you locals, it’s like Renaissance, but with better “flow”.

The morning of the race, the weather was perfect.  A little chilly, not damp.  The sport race was first.  This is good, considering my “gift of gab” (see Clemson race report).  No time to waste here.  Plus, I think it’s easier to fuel for an early race.  I’m looking around, and there aren’t too many other women around before the race.  There is another race on the same day in Clemson as part of the larger SERC series.  I think that’s where everyone else was.  I only see one other Sport woman hanging around, and she’s in the younger 19-29 class.

At the line, my suspicions were right.  It was just me and Anina — the younger racer.  They started us with the Clydesdales.  One guy (Batman — he always wears a Batman jersey his son picked out) says, “oh great — now I’ll finally be passed by the ENTIRE women’s class!”  We all chuckled.  The guy who owns the venue is a MX guy, and is used to having a bunch of motors revving on the starting line, because there is no verbal “GO” to start the race.  He just raises a flag.  This threw me off the first time I raced here, but this time I knew what to expect.  When he raised the flag, we were off.  I was having a good time.  I made motorcycle noises as I led out, ahead of most of the Clydesdales.  I guess they have more inertia to overcome, but can maintain more momentum, because it didn’t take long for them to all pass me in the MX course.  Maybe I need to work on better motorcycle noises.

Since I was the only one in my class, I can’t say I was really “racing”.  I had a bunch of fun, though.  I tried to keep the Clyde (Batman) in my sights who was convinced that we would pass him.  We had three laps to do.  At the end of the first lap, I caught him, right at the finish line.  He slows and tries to get me to pass, while telling me he’s about to puke.  The place was not a good place to pass, so I tell him I’ll pass him around the next corner, and THEN he can puke. 

I’m not sure what happened, but he sped up, didn’t puke, and we kept riding.  For the second lap, I kinda forgot that it was a race at all.  My mind wandered all over the place and I just rode.  On the third lap, I saw Batman again, so I tried to catch him.  That’s when I started to remember that it was a race afterall, even if I was only racing myself.  I booked it through the third lap.  In the field I saw the front of the Sport men’s class approaching quickly, about to lap me (that usually happens earlier in this race).  They have 4 laps to my 3 for this race.  There was a group of 3 all together, with about 3/4 mile left in the race.  When they caught me in the last section of singletrack, I pulled over, stopped, let them go by, and cheered them on.  Races that close are exciting, and I didn’t want to mess them up, especially when I knew I would get “1st place” in my race regardless.

All-in-all, it was a fun day.  I never caught Batman again.  He left me when I stopped for the other guys.  I got a huge plaque with a picture of a racer on it (“Hey!  That’s not me!”).  It was the same one they had on the plaques last year.  Devil’s Ridge is well-known for their good swag.  In addition to the huge plaque, I got two Kenda tires (my current favorites!), some grips, and another pint glass.  I could open a bar with all the pint glasses I’ve won from racing!

We have a couple of weeks off from racing, then Spartanburg Stumpjump, then comes the BURN 24-hour race.  Oh yeah, that’s coming up….. now I’m nervous again….