Crazy First Race

It all started as we were flying down a small back country road at 80 km/h and we saw another car coming straight on. Ben (our coach) swerved to the right to try and make some space so that we wouldn’t have to stop because the road was so narrow. Everything was good until we hit the ditch, it was so deep that the bottom of the van bottomed out and there was no way that we could drive it out. We quickly came to a stop and were leaning way to the right and I was sure that the van was going to tip. Ben tried to gun it but the van was stuck. We then climbed through the window to get out because the door was stuck shut.

After that we tried a lot of different things to get the van out such as; jumping on it, pushing it, and pulling it. When we realized that we were going to need some more horse power we called Els (the woman who runs the cycling house) she called up her neighbor how had a tractor and as fast as he could, drove it out to see if he could help. Meanwhile, we were all thinking about what we were going to do because we were going to miss the race.

Once the tractor arrived we thought we were saved, but the driver didn’t think it was possible for his vehicle to pull us out. Els then took out her phone and made a call to a local towing company who was soon on the way. The man arrived shortly there after and looked like he had seen problems like this a thousand a times before. To make the story short he winched the van out, and now it was time for us to decide if we still wanted to try and make it to the race.

Ben drove like crazy as we rushed to get to the race which started in only 30 minutes. We arrived and all jumped out of the car to get registered. When we went into the building where registration was held they had already taken it down, but when we told them that we were from the US and had the current national champion they opened it up again. But just because we registered didn’t mean we would make the race, we still had to; pin number, pump tire, get water, and get to the start. The race director thankfully delayed the start 5 minutes for us or none of us would have made it. And with out warm up the gun shot and we were off.

The race went well everyone was ridding strong and off the front at one point or another. Marshal flatted on the second lap and had to drop out, but other then that there were no problems. A group got away that none of us were in and stayed away, but Evan (current road national champion) finish 16th, I was 20th, and Max was 23rd. The rest of the racers came in behind and upright which is always good. Our next race is a big race tomorrow which should be very hard.

Stay tuned