Better late than never, Trialscross at the Sacramento Endurocross

Some of you guys might remember my post last year about making the amateur main at endurocross, and I figured I'd give a run down of how things went for me this year. The main thing I learned is how much things are really out of your control sometimes, and that things always happen for a reason, as you'll see below.

The Sacramento round of the Geico Endurocross series about five weeks ago. I went in thinking I was very prepared and wanted to make the amateur main again like I did last year, as well as ride the trials class. The track wasn't too bad aside from the damn matrix section, I think I went over the bars twice and looped out once throughout the day, which left me with a very sore ankle. I didn't have to worry about qualifying for the trials class since there were only six entries, so I pretty much only rode my open-am practices to conserve some energy and preserve my body a bit. I actually had the second fastest time in my first practice, but second practice I kept screwing up the matrix and that's when I banged up my ankle, luckily nothing bad but enough to effect me when I was riding. The matrix was in the back of your mind throughout the entire lap and when you finally came back around to hit it again, it was like staring the fricken devil himself in the face. That section sucked!

After the two practice sessions, it was time for the heat race. I got a good start and was battling a guy for third, which was the final transfer spot to the main, when on the second lap he decided to cross jump right into me and I went down hard. That was one of the hardest crashes I'd had in a long time, and my bike came down right on the side of my knee, I honestly feel very lucky that I didn't do any serious damage to it. Unfortunately, by the time I could actually put enough weight on it to start my bike it wasn't worth continuing, so I saved up some energy for the lcq. I honestly at this point was questioning whether I should even race, I could barely walk up the steps to our trailer since I had a bad ankle on one side and a bad knee on the other. I ended up saying screw it and giving the lcq a shot only to get pushed wide in the first corner, which led to another rider falling into me over the first log and taking us both down. To say I was disappointed would be a massive understatement, I had put in a lot of time throughout the summer on my mountain bike and in the gym to get ready for this race and to have it end through two incidents that were out of my control was really tough to take. I tried to put it all behind me and focus on the trials class, but it seriously put me down and made me wonder why the hell I was beating myself up for this in the first place. I'll never claim to be some crazy tough guy or anything, but I also don't consider myself a whimp either, and I was seriously hurting after those crashes.

After icing my knee for a while the night show came round and I got ready to race the trialscross class. At this point I really had no expectations other than to give it my all and see if I could finish, I didn't know how my knee and ankle were going to hold up and I was a little worried about doing any actual damage to them. I had a great group of people there supporting me so I had to give it a shot, not to mention had I backed out I would have had to think about it for a whole year. As we made our way down into the tunnel, the adrenalin started kicking in a bit and everything started to feel a little better. Some of you guys from around the Sacramento area might be familiar with the Dog Pound on 98.5, I saw Dog, Joe, and Arnie in the tunnel getting ready to do their promotional bit during intermission, and Arnie was cool enough to give me a good luck fist bump! . I love those guys so that was super awesome for me!

We had a few minutes of down time before our race lined up so all of the riders just talked amoungst ourselves. It was awesome to see how everyone was just super excited to be racing the event and we all just wanted to have a good time, definitely a cool group of guys to hang with. I really like the vibe at these events, everyone is really down to earth and is there to have fun and race hard. Here is the helmet cam video of race, as you can see the matrix pretty much claimed everyone every single lap!


When the top three broke away from the pack on the final lap I couldn't believe it. With the day I had I never would have thought I would end up finishing on the podium! It's crazy how quickly your luck can change and I was so happy I had decided to stick it out an race, this was something I'll never forget and something most people will never have the chance to experience. It might just be a third place in trialscross, but for me it's probably more special than making the amateur main last year just because I know what it took to get up there and all the challenges I faced throughout the day. I feel like some sort of sick, twisted drug addict though because now I can't wait to get back next year and do it all again!

Hopefully someone enjoys reading this and if you made it this far, thanks. Here's a few pictures from the day:

You're damn right I race for plastic trophies! This one will definitely always mean a lot to me.



Check out that back wheel



This tire section was catching people out all day, even the pros



Don't let them fool you, trials guys aren't afraid to bang bars!



A moment of silence for the only casualty of the weekend. Our own Raining Yellow came out to support, and during an intense bench racing session he tried to whip his camping chair, causing a massive frame failure. This was the result, evidently the chair just couldn't take the intensity. Thanks for coming out and supporting man!