This cross thing is pretty cool...

So I think I got my first real taste of what cross racing is all about this weekend.  I headed out Friday night late after my Jazz/Symphonic Band concert with my mom and Zachary to the wonderful land of West Chester for the night.  That would be our first stop in a journey to race cross across the "great" state of New Jersey.

First up: Beacon Cross in Bridgeton, NJ.  As a side note, Bridgeton is the town that one of my great-grandmothers as well as one of my great-uncles were born.  That adds an intersesting little twist to the weekend.  Zach and I left two hours early, leaving time for me innevitbly getting lost in the Philly area as I always do.  We made it in a little over an hour, just in time to watch Gunnar race in the C's.  T'was a good race and he pulled out a win in the Jr's and top 3-something overall.  That kid is f-in fast.

The Beacon course is best described as a sandy power course with a lot of long flat sections with swoopy sandy corners.  Zach and I started kitting up right after the C's finished, and it, fittingly started raining.  Yay.  By the time we were finished dressing and starting out warm-up it was full on pouring.  Double yay.  We did some laps of the course and found the corners to be getting slicker and slicker.  This race would not only demand serious power output,  and mad serious bike handling skillz.  Yo.

Race start, 3rd row (better), right behind the C-dale rep.  The gun goes and we are off and, since I have no hole-shot or anything of that nature, I find myself mid-pack again. Crap.  Working up the entire race.  Don't remember how many I caught, but I made up time on the straights (mmmmmmmmm power...) and the climbs, and the one technical descent where sick mtb handling skillz helped me rip.  Lost time on the beach run though, which sucked.  The Ampitheater of Pain (as Ken called it, and anything that is moderatly fun/difficult... it's always the ____ of pain/death/torture etc.).  T'was a good race.  Ended up 33rd, which is my bes MAC B's finish to date.  Zach ended up winning the sprint for 4th.  Awesome.  After that we got to watch Weston ride to a good win in the A's.  It had stopped raining by then.

Because all of our stuff was soaking wet, we decided not to follow our original plan of driving directly to the next race and camping out and headed towards to Bergey's homestead.  Took us about 2.5hrs to get there, and they were nice enought to put us up for the night.  Thank you Bergey's!  Next morning didn't go as planned.  The plan was this: wake up as Gunnar and his dad are leaving for his race, the C's, at ~6:00AM.  Leave by 7:00AM.  Be there way early, get a solid warmup, race hard.  This is what actually happenned.  Wake up as Gunnar is leaving at ~6:00AM, go right back to sleep, wake up again at ~7:50, utter a collective "oh shit," get in car and leave, get lost twice (my fault), arrive ~9:55AM, kit up, do a lap, race at 11:00.  Zach's race went very well.  He ended up 3rd.  Awesome for him.  My race went less well.  I was having trouble hitting the muddy sections in the right gear, and after getting lapped by the smooth flowing Jeffery Bahnson, ended up a lower-mid-pack 45th.  Oh well.  I'm over it now, and I'm not going to make excuses.  Now I get to look towards the next race.

Zach and I livened up the pits for the A race with copious loud heckling and chips and salsa (mmmmmmm), and watched one Adam McGrath kill it for a well deserved win.  He had ridden 2nd wheel to Wes all day Saturday.  His bike is really light and I want it.  It's a fully tricked out Gin and Trombones and I want it.

After that, we helped Tom and co. pack, and headed out for our about 3hr drive back to Carlizzle.  All in all a very very, good weekend.  So what is cross about?  Friends, helping others out, racing, hanging out, talking shit, heckling, standing in the rain screaming for someone as they fly by in a wet, anerobic haze.  That and more.  And it rocks.

Trenton USGP is up next.... back to Jersery I go next weekend...