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I made the long trip to the Dirt Sweat and Gears 12 hour race in Fayetteville Tennessee. Even with all the rumors and stories about the mud from last years race when I first heard about it I gave it some consideration. I was thinking of racing solo or solo SS but couldn't find anyone to carpool with. Then about 2 weeks before the race I was looking at the calendar and there didn't seem like much else going on that weekend. So I mentioned to Nathan Annon and he said he'd do it as a duo and do the driving so I figured why not. Then the day after we got registered I heard about the Cranky Monkey 9 hour race that was only 3 hours away. But whatever at this point it was to late to turn back. I got to Nat's on Thursday evening and we did a short road ride though Grafton WV. Then it was time to unpack my car and load up his car. It seems no matter how light I try to pack I always end up bringing a bunch of useless crap and never have the one or two things I really want.
Our plan was to get there early enough to do a preride and setup camp and then chill out. We left at 3:00 and the trip done was pretty uneventful for such along trip. The only thing that seemed really strange about the drive was Nat's got a GTI and he's from WV so that's two licenses to fly and he's driving like 5 mph over the speed limit WTF? Whatever but we finally got there and setup camp and headed out to do a lap. One thing I noticed right away was that it was allot hotter down here than up in the burgh. The course was pretty fun about 10 miles long I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of rocks and rocks. It didn't have any long climbs but lots of short and steep climbs. I was running a 34x19 gear and it seemed about right Nat was running a 34x20 and thought it was a little heavy and switched out to a 34x21. We ran into Mike Schultz and he was nice enough to let us take a shower his motel thanks Mike.
I liked the fact that the race didn't start until 9:00 plus we gained an hour crossing the time zone so it was really like 10:00. I convinced Nat to do the start because I just didn't feel dealing with of the traffic on the first lap. He came in 9th on the first lap I picked a few people off pretty early on. Then about 5 miles in the rattling noise on my bike kept getting louder and more consistent. It sounded like a loose bottle cage I moved my bottle into the other cage and still luck. Then I heard a really loud noise and thought my wheel came out of the dropouts cause the rear brake stopped working. I stopped and looked only to see that one of the bolts that hold on the rear brake caliper was missing and the other was backed out halfway. So I figured it'd be fastest just to ride out the rest of this lap without the rear brake. It worked out OK cause no one caught or past me before the end of the lap. Now it was time to start hunting down a bolt I asked allot of people and no luck. Then finally I got lucky and the guy from the Moots demo truck took one off of a demo bike thanks. Then while I was waiting to head out for my second lap the rain started. It didn't seem like it rained to hard or for to long but the trails were pretty slimly. I past allot of people walking and pushing their bikes and seen people using sticks to clean out the mud. It was bad but I didn't think it was to bad my first lap was like a :54 and my mud lap was a 1:06. So after I finished and get my bike cleaned up I heard that they decided to shorten the course to remove some of the mud. I was like WTF and went and tried to convince the people in charge to leave it alone without any luck. My case was we were racing on SS and I figured that we'd fair better in the mud than our competition that had gears on. They said tons of people were whining about how bad it was and they didn't want anyone getting hurt and also didn't want to have a bad experience and not come back next year. I understood his points agreed but it's never fun not getting your way. They were really fair about how they put people onto the shortened course too. You had to be on the same lap as the leader of your class that way every team got a little taste of the mud. I guess I'm a little more used to the mud than some others. Because they basically removed the first 2-3 miles of the course. I past some of racers in that section and finished the lap washed my bike and was waiting to head back out and they were just coming back covered in mud and they even short cutted back didn't even finish the lap. We never really got close to the first place team and went back and forth with 2nd and 3rd. In the end we finished 2nd and I was OK with that.
After the race was cool lots of free swag some god food and some great local beers. Then the rain came and it rained all night long. We woke up early and packed up in the light rain which sucked but I'm glad we left when we did cause that's when it started to rain even harder. Two rules I found out when traveling with Nat first the passenger it's allowed to sleep and second what the gas gauge. Overall I think it was a pretty awesome race and venue the only drawback I see is the 20 plus hours of driving. So as of now I'm unsure about next year. But thanks to everyone for the fun check it out www.dirtsweatandgears.com
Plus one more shout out to Scotty Holmes for his roadside assistance along 79.
J
