The past weekend was a race-filled one for me. No, I'm not talking about Fort William (I wish I was!), I'm talking about the 3rd DHI held in Paços de Ferreira.
I arrived at the track on saturday, stoked about the track and the race itself. I had seen a couple of videos of the track and teh locals riding it, but those videos fooled me good... I was expecting something very similar to what I'd seen in them but when I dropped in for the first time, I discovered a very different and way harder track than I expected.
At first, I was a bit disappointed because that was NOT my kind of track- at all... Super rocky, rooty, steep, super technical and hard. After seeing what it really was, I was a bit down because I never thought of enjoying that track, let alone achieve a good performance and result.
But the truth is, after a couple of practice runs, I started going faster and faster, trying harder lines and taking chances.
It didn't take too long before I was getting to the finish line with a big smile on my face, ripping the track and really having a great time.
It all went well, except for the flat tyre before the first race run... That gave me two practice runs on my dad's Bighit, while he changed the rear tube.
On my first race run, I wasn't too nervous (this time there was a 1 minute margin between the racers), even knowing my brother would be coming down right after me (and he rides at a different level, higher). I got a 2.16minutes time, not that bad. When the first race run times where published, I was 62th overall (middle of the chart).
Lunch hour was a blast, all the mates went walking up the track, checking lines, seeing what everyone could improve in the 2nd race run.
Lots of jokes and laughter later, we head down to the padock site and got ready to get on the trucks and back up to the gate.
I dropped in at 15h:25m and actually took 4 seconds off my first race run, ending up with a 2.12minutes time. I was very happy with it, I got 35th (Promotion).
But I was even happier with my personal progress, in a track as technical as that, going as fast as I was, I progressed a lot.
Well, I got a couple of pics, one of them on the hardest rock garden of them all, hope you'll like it.
Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment