Kinda bummed, totally stoked

This past Sunday was the 9th race in the Midwest Fat Tire Championship Series, Spanish Lake. I last raced here in 1995, narrowly beating Dan Schmatz for 2nd in a sport race. Trail is definitely better these days, but still has a ton of gravel and rough grassy sections. I happened to find some of that gravel and get to know it a little better than I would have liked. This was the beginning of what led me to be "kinda bummed". I'll get back to that as it sucked and what made me totally stoked is better. Greg Won!

The race started out with what I thought was an easy pace. I again just sat back and followed. It was Todd Holtmann, Eric Schuck, Greg Ott and myself setting the pace. All was good through the first lap. Todd and I were together, Greg and Eric were together only a few seconds back. Todd stopped to get a new bottle to replace the one he dropped and I was in the lead. I felt like I was cool and calm when about 200 meters past the start/finish I went to turn into the single track and washed out, going down hard, very hard. I went down on my left leg and quickly went face first into the dirt. When I got up my glasses were hanging down off my face, my visor was broken and my thumb hurt. I felt for blood and didn't see too much so after Greg and then Todd came by I took off. I quickly realised that I wasn't going to be gripping the bar with my right hand and as soon as I tried my first shift, found out that my injury might be more than I thought.

I figured out a way to hold the bar so I wouldn't die while navigating stuff and found a way to shift using the rest of my hand. Had I had trigger shifters, I would have been done. (Monday after the race I tried to unlock my car using my remote and couldn't push the button with my thumb.) I really thought about stopping, but pressed on. Finished lap 2 with Todd, not far behind Greg and less than a minute on Eric. Cruised lap 3 and all was the same except Greg's lead grew. Todd dropped back on lap 4, Greg pulled away and Eric was unchanged. Lap 5 was when I started to feel everything. It was getting hotter, my arm was starting to hurt from compensating and my spirits started going downhill. I backed off and soon Eric caught me. Greg was far gone by now and Todd had stopped to take a cool down. Somewhere in there Nate came by me. Before starting my 7th lap I stopped and took a 10+ minute break. I wasn't sure that I would be going back out but also wasn't ready to quit. Just before I went back out Pete Goode came through taking over 4th. I left just hoping to make another lap. It went OK and went back out for another. I was slow but didn't get lapped and pulled off a 5th place.

Greg rode like a man on a mission for the win. Eric made a charge on lap 7 but Greg turned it back up and finished with over a 3 minute lead. Awesome job. First win for Ghisallo in the Marathon class.

Now I'm nursing my hand in hopes of doing the Rapture in Misery 12 hour this weekend. If nothing else it will be some good training as I've done none for the last few weeks.