Race 2 – 2012 Charlotte Winter Short Track Series

ByMike Byrd

Sunday, February 5, 2012 was Race #4 of the Charlotte Winter Short Track Mountain Bike Series. It rained all day Saturday so all the racers were expecting a wet/muddy course. But once again, that wasn’t the case. The course was in great shape and lap times were consistent with the previous weeks.

I was feeling pretty good after riding Brushy Mtn. 3 times on Friday with Mike L. During my warm-up my legs felt pretty good and the temperature was perfect for racing. I even took my leg warmers off.

I started the race in the front row and got a good start and went into the woods in about 3 or 4th place. The first lap was uneventful and coming out of the woods on the first lap, TJ hit the gas hard and I jumped on Steve Fish’s wheel. I think we stayed in this position for a couple laps with TJ hitting it hard out of the woods. Five us up ended up off the the front, Steve, Me, TJ, Andy Good and Todd.

Steve went to the front after about 5 laps and put the hammer down. Andy and Todd couldn’t hold the pace so now it was down to Steve, TJ and me. I was in 2nd place behind Steve for the next 5 laps. On one hand I was glad to be hanging on because in the past couple races, Steve and TJ were dropping me on the gravel road. But on the other hand I was suffering bigtime.

I wanted to get into the woods first after about 10 laps but just couldn’t get by Steve. So I decided to try to save some energy for the finish. The only problem with my theory was that Steve kept driving the pace harder and harder. I was 2nd coming out of the woods on the last lap and thought I had a chance until Steve surged again. I blew up and told TJ he had to go.

I finished in 3rd place about 15 seconds behind Steve and TJ. Once again, they had a sprint finish. I hope to be closer next week!

The SS race went as usual. I had a nice easy start and moved up to 9th place and raced most of the race by myself. I was only lapped by one person so I’m definitely improving.

One more race to go! The Cool Breeze/Trek Bike Store team is leading the team competition and should be able to win that category.

The Bike Racer

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the Internet. My name is Mike Byrd and this is my website. I enjoy sports, being outside, new challenges, marketing and anything that comes my way. I am the author of the blog posts on thebikeracer.com. I enjoy writing about cycling, poiltics, coffee and anything else that fits in the "My World" category. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter to say up to date on anything new that gets posted to thebikeracer.com.

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