Wisconsin Racing is going strong! The fourth race for the 2015 WORS series was located at Nine Mile Forest in Wausau, WI. Laura, Shimano and I (Brandon) came up on Saturday and camped out near one of the local lakes. Since the race is a bit far from Madison we did not have any other Monkeys at the race. The citizen course for me was fairly wet due to early morning rains and saturated grounds. We had a mix of double track and single track course that was not very technical at all. That is one of the negatives of being out of shape and not able to compete at a higher level yet. Technical courses seem to be a bit easier for me, its the endurance and race pace that I struggle with. I started out the race settling in about 7th in the group, when it opened to double track i tried my best to gain a few positions. The first lap allowed me to see a few more attack points for the next and final lap. I had one other age group competitor that I switched positions with a few times before finally getting some ground over him. Still knowing that he was only a little ways behind made me take the slick course a bit more cautiously so not to fall and have him pass. In hind sight I should have press harder had I know the 3rd place finisher was only 30 seconds ahead. The last double track to the finish I could hear a racer right behind me in the woods, as soon as it opened it I tucked my head and took off sprinting to the finish. I ended up 4th in the age group and 50th overall out of the over 140 Citizen racers. Laura raced again with the Women's Open group. They had a very different course. The wet trails had dried out a bit from earlier in the morning giving better traction, however the open group raced the pro course so the difficulty was increased. While watching I saw a number of racers DNF with injuries and broken bikes. Laura came through the feed zone looking good. Shimano and I watched patiently for her finish. She came across the line in 6th for the overall Women's Open field. Later I found out that she did endo over the bars in one of the rocky sections of the course. Again the ability to pre ride the courses would have been a better idea, but it still was fun. She had some issues getting the stuck chain back on so she lost a position. Overall it was a fun day of racing. We will have a few weeks off before racing again in July at Nordic Mountain. Other Monkeys are racing the WEMS race this weekend and possibly going to the WORS Race #5 at Eau Claire. Shimano did get 1st place in cuteness. He was one tired pup by the end of the weekend. -Brandon Andrews Some of the photos are taken with permission from http://www.xtrphoto.com. Visit their site to view our photos from the race. |
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