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49er Qualifier With the first rains of the year coming during the week the 49er was going to be perfect. I had just started riding again and thought that the 80 mile qualifier would be a perfect place to start getting back in riding shape again. Big Al was going to go racing this weekend so we all loaded up in the box van and headed out Friday night. It was a little cold on Saturday morning but luckily the race wasn't to start until 9:00. We all signed up on the same minute along with Chris Zito for an all KTM minute. We had a good complete line of bikes represented with Al on the 200, Chris on the 250, Brian on the 450 four stroke, and I had the big 520. We started off and it took a minute for me to get comfortable. The good news was that the conditions were absolutely perfect. The rain during the week eliminated dust but there still wasn't any puddles or snow. A couple of miles in we had our first special test. Brian took off in a hurry but my strategy was to just ride smooth and not even try to go fast. Brian had a fall during the test and jacked his hand guard up in the process but got going again fast enough to have the second fastest time in the test behind Billie Russell. The ride was great with some good trails and a bunch of fire roads that we could fool around on in Qualifier format instead of cruising down them board, which is often the case at local enduros. Al was having a hard day with a case of crashitis during the race crashing at least once in each test. Brian had good rides in the other tests putting in fast times although Billie Russell was keeping his honest. I was right on track having fun on the bike but wasn't really pushing too hard. On the second half of the day Brian and I had some fun on the trail sections and I think I went faster with him then I did in the test. Leaving the gas I wanted to wick it up a little on the fire road and pitch it out on the corner. I hit the gas hard and the 520 responded and pitched me way out, then came back around the other way like it was going to high side me. I realized I had a little situation so I kept on the throttle and got it to straighten out again. Whew, that felt good. We had some other fun on the trail after caching up to Tim Stowe. He saw us come up behind him so he wicked it up. A while later we came up to some logs and Tim was surprised by them but made it over, the bad news there was another one that the slid out on. We stopped and all had a laugh and noticed there was a special test right ahead. While Tim was cleaning out his goggles I went up to the test and they said it wasn't timed. I took off like it was and Brian did the same. Later Tim came up to us and said he waited a minute or two getting ready for the test after his crash only to find out it wan not for time. Brian ended up with the overall with a slim margin over Billie Russell. I had a great time finally getting to race again and can't wait to get back into it again. |