Went over to Mansfield Hollow with the family and had a good day of racing. The clouds parted and the sun was shinning brightly, although a cold wind chilled things off just a bit. Perfect for racing. Course was largely the same as last year – 2 sand runs, 2 sets of barriers, a run-up, long off-camber on the dike, and lots of up and down. Scott and Craig were there. Both missed the start I guess. I’ll let them fill in the rest from their end.

Got a front row start position and put myself in 6th position or so has we settled in for the first obstacle, a single barrier just after a slight up hill. Glad I hung back a bit because the 1st or 2nd guy plowed right into it, delaying others, while I had time to react and make it through, now in 3rd place. Half way through the first lap our group of 5 formed. John Moser was the strongest guy in the race and after chasing our group down he rode right through us, taking Doug Aspinwall with him. I hesitated, which I shouldn’t have done. By lap 2, our group was down to 3, Brian Atwood, another guy and myself. By this point, John had dragged Doug to 20 seconds in front of us and then dropped him. We chased Doug the rest of the race. I had a couple of bobbles in the race, once on the 1st sand run, I kinda just fell over. The next was more spectacular. I went wide on a turn, going into some leaves, and some still unknown object, stopped my forward progress cold! I went as* over tea kettle, taking down Brian and causing the other guy to stopped too. We picked ourselves up with no harm to man or machine and we off again. With 3 to go Brian and I dropped the other rider. Brian and I exchanged attacks for the next 2 laps. With 2 to go I gapped him and he chased me down and then with 1 to go he gapped me and I was on the defensive. I caught him just before the last set of barriers, which lead into the wide open field part of the course. He pulled for just a little and then sat up, waiting for me to come by. I rolled through and as I rounded the corner into the uphill I attacked, flew over the barrier and kept the pressure on to grab 3rd place.