- Bad Idea Racing – HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

So happy to be at the first checkpoint….

When I pulled into the finish and saw all the people all hanging out around the fire it was just salt in the wound.  I made my way over to Jason who was just sitting there looking empty.  Eric “PMBAR Honcho” Wever was scanning over the results seeing if he could somehow wedge us in around the rules to allow us to start day two.  Turns out we were one of two teams that made 10.5 checkpoints, but the other team squeaked in three minutes before the cutoff and thirteen minutes ahead of us.  Only thirteen minutes, but the last ten were ten too many.  We would not see any more racing on Sunday.

I made my way back to my Element shivering the whole way.  In a moment of brilliant irony my helmet light gave out halfway back to the car to remind me that my race was over, and sometimes a little more is not quite enough.  I went through the “it will get worse before it gets better” moment of removing all my wet clothes, being naked exposed to the thirty something degree air, and getting dry clothes on.  The shaking and shivering wouldn’t go away.  I grabbed my cold mac and cheese and a beer and headed back towards the campfire.

And I thought it was cold on top of Mt Pisgah…

On my way back towards the happy place Gabe from Smoke Bikes told me to get into the heated Smoke RV and sit down.  Captain Morgan was already on board and still staring into space.  My mac and cheese got some heat, and after a half hour or so I stopped shaking violently, or at least I was shaking violently a lot less often.  Gabe even said I was looking a lot less blue than when I finished.  Once I downed my food I decided to skip the campfire and head straight to my sleeping bag.  Jason made a great choice and got in his car to go back to the nearby warmth of his home.

The next morning I was sure to get up to watch the start.  I had traveled from Charlotte with Blair Young who was partnered up with his buddy Mert.  I figured I needed to get him up to speed on my situation since he was in bed and happy (ish) long before I finished the night before.  After the start I spent the rest of the time hanging out with other non-Sunday starters and Eric.  With nothing else to do I helped Eric with tear down and figuring out time splits and bonus times.  Every time Eric would say “What was team 88′s time from blah,blah, blah to blee blee blee” it hurt just a little bit when I said “That was us dumbass.  Who’s next?”.  When I had time to look over the Saturday’s results I hardly felt any better.

This isn’t even a checkpoint.  We were just sooooooooo happy to be there.

The team we were right behind (if we hadn’t been DQ’ed) had none other than Brad Kee and Matt Fusco on it.  Brad is infamous for his knowledge of Pisgah, has won the Double Dare and PMBAR countless times, and won last year’s Most Horrible Thing Ever.  I also found out that he is a surveyor by trade so even if he had to pull out a map it wouldn’t look like a a map to him.  Where I see squiggly lines he sees valleys, mountains, gaps, rivers… sort of a mental 3_D google earth packed in some smart lobe of his brain.  He’s the man when it comes to this type of racing in the Pisgah, hands down.  To be only minutes down on somebody like that is as encouraging as being disqualified was discouraging.  Granted it’s bike racing, and Brad and his teammate might have had ten flats, saved a baby from a burning building, and helped some Amish folk raise a barn in those twelve hours.  Either way I’m pretty happy about getting closer to the level Brad races at when it comes to thing Pisgahular.

The other thing I noticed was that if we woulda skipped Mt Pisgah (the hike/run special test) or our last checkpoint we woulda still been in second and possible by close to an hour.  We also coulda done our original route direction and been on much less challenging terrain after dark.  Perhaps if those aliens  I swore I saw landing on the side of the mountain when I was on Squirrel Gap woulda flew Jason and I around the course we woulda won and had our anuses probed….  oh well.

photo cred: Mike R

Maybe you’re still in, maybe you’re still in… no, you’re not still in.

I’m trying to put a positive mental spin on this.  I’ve had plenty of DNF’s in my time, but this is my first missed cut-off forced DSQ.  It sucks, and it doesn’t help that Double Dare is my last race to refelct on to who knows when.  More coulda shoulda wouldas than you can shake a coulda woulda shoulda shaking stick at.

Congrats to all those that finished.

Maybe I’ll still have something interesting to say tomorrow.