 |
| Andy
Lagzdins climbs over one of the numerous
tire obstacles at the Glen Helen WORCS
race enroute to his 6th Place finish |
Devore, CA (9/30/2010) - It really bothers me when the weather
is better in Maryland than in California. My hometown
Baltimore is having wet but cool weather with
highs in the 70's while I'm here in Los Angeles
sweating it out in 113 degree weather! Luckily,
it was only 110 at the start of the WORCS event
at Glen Helen Raceway yesterday, but that was
still plenty hot for an all out two hour endurance
race. There just isn't that much you can do to
prepare for a torture test like that, other than
trying to stay hydrated as much as possible before
the race, wearing some lightweight super-ventilated
Moose Sahara gear, and filling your Camelbak to
the rim with your favorite fluids and ice. By
the way, Chapstik melts at 110!
Glen Helen is a great place to hold a WORCS
race. The new home of the USGP has a world-class
motocross track, a full throttle off road truck
course, whoop-filled sand washes, and more elevation
changes than Unadilla. By the time WORCS promoter
Sean Reddish tosses in an Endurocross section,
a 15ft tall barely quad-width steel bridge with
stairs on the ends, and a doomsday downhill
that ends with a freefall into a boulder field,
there is definitely a lot going on. Unfortunately,
I don't think it was a good idea on my part
to add to the challenge by not doing practice
or qualifying!
We lined up on the MX start staring at the
infamous high-banked first turn known as Talledega.
The sun was as relentless as the heat. The gate
dropped and we blasted off to start the Main
Event, with Dillon Zimmerman and Dustin Nelson
battling for the holeshot. The massive hillclimbs
at Glen Helen are a true test of a quad's power
and traction. One of the big climbs was even
extended past the normal height and had two
extra tiers to it, topping out on the highest
ridge in the area. It was hard not to catch
a glimpse of the spectacular view, but there
was no time as course immediately started twisting
down the backside of the ridge. The temperature
jumped up by at least 20 degrees on the sun-baked
hillside and the trail turned into a goat path
giving way into an erosion crevice strewn with
basketball-size boulders. The finishing touch
was a near vertical drop into a bone-dry stream
bed laced with rocks waiting to rip off an a-arm
or pop a balljoint as your quad free-falls into
it with your body barely clinging onto it like
a sack of potatoes falling off a vegetable truck!
We did about a dozen laps on the track in two
hours, and even with pacing myself my body just
refused to put any effort into riding my quad
near the end of the final lap. My personal burnout
point was on one of the Endurocross logs. I
had been pounding through them pretty good,
although with no real technique, but there was
one that seemed to always have my number. I
don't know if it was the front edge of my frame
plate, or the a-arm mount points or what, but
every time I hit this thing my wrists felt like
they were going to pop out of their sockets
and a bunch of tree parts would go flying out
in front of me. So it was the last lap and my
tongue was already getting caught in my bar
clamps, then I hit the log and my wrists popped
and the wood parts flew through the air and
my rear tires spun furiously trying to get traction.
I hopped to the side and pretty much dead lifted
the quad over the obstacle and that was it-
I was completely done. With only the off road
truck track and a couple sand washes left to
go, I think I timed it pretty damn well. I held
on to the finish, and as I got the mandatory
hose-down at the finish line, I had that unmatchable
feeling of successfully putting in 100% of my
effort into the race.
Well it turns out that the temperatures we had
in LA were a record for the last 120 years.
And if anyone brings it up in the future I’ll
remember exactly where I was during that heat
wave: I was wearing layers of padded clothing
in the midday sun, including a helmet and goggles,
riding at break-neck speeds on an ATV in some
of the hilliest terrain in San Bernardino, occasionally
bench pressing my machine over logs and eating
facefulls of dirt from other riders, and somehow
loving every minute of it!
