I decide to skip out on Belterra but I really like racing at the driveway and could not miss this weekend. I was surprised to see that no other WCCRT racers showed up. (not counting Travis)

I entered the 35+ Cat 4/5 and we started at 9.10. I had only raced there one time before and it was the short course. Yesterday was the full race track and it suited me much better as I did not need to climb the corkscrew nearly as many times!

The weather was cold but not too windy. We all took off and overall it seemed like a pretty easy race to hang in the pack. There were a couple breaks but nothing that sustained an entire lap. There were many close calls but no one went down. We were climbing the corkscrew and many times the pack would get bunched up there and create a mess. Early in the race I had to jump the curve and go through the dirt back on the track. I really did not lose a lot of time and easily caught the pack. I sat in the entire race and tried to move up towards the end but did not get real far. I ended 33 of about 60 starters, 6 seconds back from the winner. I finished the race at 24.4 mph, Pn=279, Pa=245.

After some encouragement from Charles Huckabee (aka Crockdoc) I decided to enter the Cat 4 race that was held one hour later. I have never raced 2x in one day so had no idea how it would go. It turned out not to be a problem at all. The field was virtually the same as the first race with the addition of the youngsters that were not old enough for the 35+. This race was a bit different, there were 4 wrecks but overall there were not nearly as many near misses...not sure how that can be. At least the people around me were holding their lines much better, maybe it was because we all had a race under our belts. Overall the race seemed much easier to me but the speed was a bit higher 24.7, and my power similar, Pn=273, Pa= 225. My guess is that I was carrying better corner speed and did not work as hard. On the last lap of the race I was fortunate to work my way toward the front heading into the corkscrew when one of the rider wrecked and held many of us up...I lost all momentum and had to kill myself to get around and finish coming in 29th. Oh well, if I was not behind him he would not have held me up!

Overall I love the driveway and will try to make it back several times this year to race again.

Nice report Mike!!! Also good to hear about someone's race, the positives and lessons learned. Your numbers were very good...you aught to be getting top tens with just a little more confidence to move to the front of the pack (top 10%)!

Steve

ps. CrockDoc was a member of the WCC last year, but has been racing for Sugar Cycles. He is a strong racer, only a year or so into it...how did he do?

Good job Mike - thanks for the report.