Sunday, March 7th 2010 will be one of those days that will be filed anyway in my memory for years to come. It was the kind of day where you start off asking yourself, "and why am I doing this again?" And of course the answer is always the same, "because you love it and in your crazy world it's the only time when you get to be 110% in the moment."
Thanks to Don Emde and everyone else at Parts Magazine, I got to spend the night in a hotel the night before Round 3 of the National Hare & Hound Series in El Centro, Ca. I woke up early Sunday morning, well rested and ready for a win. This weekend's race was the first weekend this year that my bike was completely dialed in, no more coolant leaks or motor problems, and best of all Cameron re-geared it with a brand new Afam sprocket!
We headed out to the race site fairly early since it was raining cats and dogs we wanted to make sure we had enough time to get ready before the actual start. Looking down pit row it looked like a battle field of plastic bags, duct tape, and ponchos! We're pretty spoiled here in California with our desert racing as far as the weather goes, so to see everyone getting creative with their lack of rain gear was pretty comical. The rain was coming down hard, so I threw on my Moose Racing jacket over my XCR gear and a poncho on top of that, in an effort to stay somewhat dry.
The ride down to the start was an adventure within itself, so I was starting to feel a little anxious about the race. Who knew you would have to cross rivers and lakes to just get to the start! Once the banner dropped it was a race for pure survival, this didn't feel like a Hare & Hound, but more like a qualifying round for Last Man Standing. Luckily for me I had a fresh set of Kenda Parker DTs on my KTM which worked wonders in the mud! I don't have much experience racing through mud and skimming through 60 foot water crossings, but my tires kept handling whatever Mother Nature threw at us with flying colors.
For the first 30 miles I was battling back and forth with Tresa Worrell, the current Woman's point leader in the National Hare & Hound Series. She started out in front, then I passed her and ended up riding a little over my head and crashing into a mud puddle and then she regained the lead. I picked up my bike, smeared some more mud on my goggles in an attempt to wipe them off, and took off again. Within 5 miles or so I finally caught Worrell and made the pass, at about mile marker 22 there was an alternate gas pit, which I needed to stop at, so I was passed one again! Oh well, that's what made this such an exciting race, not only were the conditions out of this world, but I had the privilege of racing with some serious competition.
Racing in the desert has a funny way of messing with your head, just when you feel like you are on a roll the dirt throws something out at you to catch you off guard. The terrain would go from nice wet sand in the sand washes to total pools of seeping mud in areas that are usually hard packed dirt trails. There were times when I would come up over a hill and enter a war zone of riders embedded in the mud with their bikes laying next to them in clouds of steam. In one of these sections was where I was able to regain the lead by going to the outside of the "mud pit" and using the rocks as traction to pull me out of the mess.
All was going well, I was finally in my grove and at this point my attitude was saying, "Water? what water?" I was tapped out in a sand wash at race mile 49 when all of the sudden my bike just decided to shut off. I pulled it over to the side and examined the situation after a couple of minutes I finally realized I must have fouled a plug with all of these darn water crossing. Changing the plug wasn't the problem for me, it was getting to it! There was so much mud caked on it that that it took me a good while to scrap it off and get my spark plug wrench around it, but I finally did! Once I swapped the plugs out, I was back on and ready to continue onto the pits. I had about six miles left to go, nobody told me that part of those six miles were under water! After I went through the last check I had to ride through what looked like a swamp where alligators would hang out, I for sure thought I was going to get stuck and have to get Cameron to come out in his swamp buggy to rescue me. But luckily for me my KTM just powered through all the water and muck and we were able to make it to the pits.
Once I got into the pits the second loop was already closed due to safety reasons because the weather had continued to get worse. Saying I was a little bummed is definitely an understatement, I really wanted to do the second loop since I raced this race last year and had a blast on loop two. But rules are rules and I took the one loop finish and first place finish in the Woman's A/B class, which puts me in the lead going into Round 4 of the National Hare & Hound Series.
Round 3 has really prepared me for what's in store for Round 4 in Murphy, Idaho. This coming weekend we are going to spend tearing down the bikes and getting them ready for next week's trek up north to race the National.
Thank you to all my sponsors who have helped me along the way, without your continued support I wouldn't be able to continue to do what I love. Special thanks to Cameron Brewer for always going above and beyond in prepping my bike for race day, without you and your mad skills I would probably still be stuck out in the mud.
~ Joanna
