Dist. 16 HareScramble-Denmark 9/20/08

[UpsMan]

The course was about 1/3 mx track, 1/3 tight woods, and 1/3 open fields that had a bunch of high speed hairpin turns to make it interesting. I don't know how long it was, but in 1.5 hours the leaders did 14 laps, to give you an idea. Only three guys in my class (+40 Quad), C27 was a no-show. There was a fourth guy on a yfz but his motor locked up in the pits before the race. HA HA.
It was a dead engine start, so of course I start it and click in gear too quick and kill it. It just will not start in gear very good, so by the time I'm running, the guys are long gone, or so I thought. The first part of the course was the mx part, so I had caught up before we even hit the woods!! The guy directly in front of me was on one of the new Honda 700XX or whatever they are called. He stalled in the woods a couple of times and when we got to the first open spot I shot past him and didn't see him again for almost an hour when I lapped him. The first place guy in my class was pretty good. Several times I caught up to him and was right on his bumper in the woods. I always managed to make a mistake of some kind and fall back. It was extremely dusty, so making a mistake was really easy. Driving too hard into a corner for example and running off course, or just having to slow down because you can't see, that kind of thing. I tipped over in the woods in an off-camber section when I was right on his tail. I was just too tired to fight it and kind of plopped over. Every time this stuff happend, I would catch back up. Sometimes it would take a lap or two, but I kept catching him. Passing was another story. I just couldn't make it happen. I tried real hard and am paying the price today. I'm very sore. I bet he is too. In the end, he beat me by 8 seconds after 90 minutes of racing. I'm disappointed but also very happy. The ATK ran great except for the starting thing. I'm pretty new at xc racing but am learning a lot. I finished 8th overall and only got passed by 1 A rider. The End.

[cannondale27]

Awesome job Roger. Wish I would have known you were going to run. Spent day fixing trails at Viking from last weekends Harescramble but that could have waited. So how about that Ironman offer I gave you?

[peterock]

Roger,

I work with Andy Seefeldt. He sent me this email this morning.


Roger Brown and I had a full 1.5 hour battle at Denmark. I just couldn't shake him but was able to hold him off for the win.


Andy

[UpsMan]

Cool! I'll get him next time. I saw in the results that there actually was 4 of us that ran in the +40 class, so the guy on the yfz might have been in a different class or else he was able to borrow a quad and run.