Amatuer Team Panda rides across Nevada
- Thread starter snowflake
- Start date
Double shot of Stoli, but it had two pieces of bacon, so it does count as breakfast.
I just read a 4 man team in the V2R was all above the 65yo mark, and pulled 4th in the 300 expert class. Pretty bad ass as on of the guys crashed at the 100 mile mark breaking bones, along with cheek bone and a couple knocked out teeth. Got up and did 20 more miles to the pit. Damn if the saying aint true... OLD GUYS RULE...
I read that yesterday as well. Pretty bad ass for sure.....
They claim they are going back for the win next year...
K, I'm finally coming out of the loopy that comes with extreme exhaustion good enough that I might be able to type up an actual race report for what has been the gnarliest thing I've done to date, a fair accomplishment I feel for anyone who isn't a paid racer.
Way back in the truck ride back to the pits after I rode a dirt bike with no handlebars at the mint 400, I mentioned to Tim, who managed my pits at that race that I'd like to solo Vegas To Reno (the longest off road race in the U.S) He looked to me and said you're crazy, things progressed and at the end of the day, I said I'd do it. And then a bunch of people pitched in to help cover the expenses or provide services (he he he) or parts where needed. And I was signed up for what was a bucket list item for me, sponsored literally only by family and friends.
I managed to get 3 chase trucks, only one of which is here on facebook to tag, so Ron Sadler III, thank you for taking the wheel of my ecoboost and running pits for me, hell of an intro to desert racing for an east coast woods guy I'm sure.
On to the actual race itself, for now. Race start was 5:45 am in Beatty, about 1.5 hours from vegas where my motel was, I woke up at 2 a.m, rounded up ron, and took off.
The first section of the race would have been fun, but heading east into the sun with dust, literally meant zero visibility other than maybe the first 5 feet in front of me, and being a long race I'd have to do all by myself, I elected to not chance anything and rode painfully slow, by pit 2/3 things had started to clear up good enough that I could ride my own race. Things were pretty uneventful, we did figure that even with the desert tank the yz (with its safe range of about 60 miles, was gonna have to pit every pit aside from being able to skip pit 1. The first real mountain range we crossed was kind of welcome after the dust and silt beds, aside from one particular corner, it was a right hander with a wash out extending about into the halfway point with a cliff, I came into it, it was kinda blind, and theres just 2 bikes chilling there, I hit the wash out and somehow stayed up right and just kept truckin, it was all rather uneventful, I was making sure I got something to snack on at every pit, kept my hydration levels up. Somewhere after pit 5, I saw a bike pulled off to the side and the rider on their knees, I went and checked, and it wasn't that rider, but rather an albuquerque local who was seriously hurt, the other had already called a helo and told me to go, and seeing as how I'm not medically trained, no matter how bad I wanted to help, I figured it'd be best to just do as I was told (liz can be scary when she's frustrated)
This race course, to take a break, is unique, its a point to point running through one of the most sparsely populated states, you spend a lot of time in silt beds, on jeep roads through mountain ranges, and passing through/by small/abandoned towns and left overs from the mining industry, I did a lot of cruising, stuff was uneventful, life was goodish.
Then I rolled into pit 8 (I think?) and was told the info that I wasn't looking forward to, I wasn't going to beat the trucks, and they were right on me, about 2 pits back. Shit. Made it to pit 10, which was the first time in the whole day dehydration had caught me as well as physical exhaustion, I had definietly ridden a bit too hard and not paced myself nearly good enough, catching people and trying to hold them off, ones that weren't iron manning, and trying to deal with teams whose riders are a lot fresher than I was, wasn't a wise move. By the time I hit pit 11, I was nearing survival mode, it was also somewhere near this time, on a rocky (theres no rocks at v2r
:/) road there was a long steep hill and the only girl in the expert ironman class was stalled on it, having already been passed by the first truck and having more on the way, I opted to ride to the top of the hill and help her out, she was on the struggle bus for sure, had a hard time picking it up and couldn't quite remount, so, after hiking back down, helped stabilize the bike, told her to take a breather off to the side and that I'd take care of it, got her to the top, remounted, took off, I later found out she'd break her arm and not be able to finish, sad day. And then not 2 miles later, while keeping my head on a swivel for trucks, saw one coming, went for the customary get the hell out of the way, jumped a berm, and didn't even think about what was on the other side, there was a small irrigation ditch type thing, just big enough that it stopped the front wheel as I came down, sent me over the bars and the bike proceeded to pile drive me into the loose rock, I got several lacerations to my arms/chest from this one, and it was bad enough that it cracked the helmet shell, and I was laying there, in the late stage of the race, hurting, sore, beat up, but I didn't come to quit, so I forced myself to get up, try and ignore all that, pick up the 250lb motorcycle, get it fired up, and continue.
I rolled into pit 13, Dan's excitement was livid, you're about to do it, you're about to have succesfully iron manned the longest off road race in the states. I was exhausted, and beat up, and sore, in addition to the cuts from the crash my lips were so chapped they were physically bleeding, my hands had blisters that had been torn open and oozing, a finger nail had been peeled up leaving blood marks in my glove. But a bit of a relief came over me, what could the last 45 miles be in comparison to the previous 455? Well, everyone had told me that the last bit was the roughest, and it was. after leaving pit 13 you got on an abandoned 2 lane pavement that was extremely torn up and jagged, the bike would kick violently and it shook up your body (my forearms were done at this point) so bad it was borderline unbearable, and then it eased out and it kinda seemed like we were in a state park type deal? but anyway, I was running way slow, most of the bikes that were going to finish had finished and I was still out there as the sun went down, but there were plenty of spectators lining the path, and naturally they were incredibly supportive, just having them scream and cheer and wave and fist pump kinda gave me the energy to keep going, and then there was the last 15 miles or so.
Jeep trails, with giant boulders. stuff you have to pick your line carefully through, and it was dark, it took me something like an hour to traverse the last little bit, I was tired, made a few mistakes, not like crashing, but I did hit a rock hard enough that it kicked the rear end and sent the bike headed for hte cliff,grabbed the front brake just in time to keep from starting down the edge, got straightened out, and then boom, I saw it, the lights of the finish line town, I took my goggles off, they were tinted and it was dark, they were filthy anyway, I got into the standing position, loosely rode the bike in, and crossed the finish line nearly 14 hours after I left the start line, Ron and Dan came out clearly excited, didn't have the energy to deal with the slaps on the back and felt like I was about to fall over, got my finisher pin, got told good job, dudes in line for finisher interviews were kinda of blown away, no way they'd want to ride even a section of this thing on a motorcycle let alone all of it, beers were offered, but I didn't have the capacity to drink, waters were slammed, got asked if I needed medical attention, I didn't, ron and dan loaded the bike, ron drove me to the motel in reno, and the most welcome sites in the world welcomed me, a bath tub and a bed.
And that, is how we did it, thank you to everyone who has pitched in to help make this happen, my family, the whelchels, my friends in cali, my friends in gallup, Steve, who helped tear down and make sure the bike would make it, Matt @ Rev Designs for making the bike an attention grabber everywhere it went, everyone who has bought a shirt (I still have plenty to sell if you want one) it has been unforgettable, a once in a life time opportunity. I am eternally grateful for all of you, We did it.
So, what should I do next?
Way back in the truck ride back to the pits after I rode a dirt bike with no handlebars at the mint 400, I mentioned to Tim, who managed my pits at that race that I'd like to solo Vegas To Reno (the longest off road race in the U.S) He looked to me and said you're crazy, things progressed and at the end of the day, I said I'd do it. And then a bunch of people pitched in to help cover the expenses or provide services (he he he) or parts where needed. And I was signed up for what was a bucket list item for me, sponsored literally only by family and friends.
I managed to get 3 chase trucks, only one of which is here on facebook to tag, so Ron Sadler III, thank you for taking the wheel of my ecoboost and running pits for me, hell of an intro to desert racing for an east coast woods guy I'm sure.
On to the actual race itself, for now. Race start was 5:45 am in Beatty, about 1.5 hours from vegas where my motel was, I woke up at 2 a.m, rounded up ron, and took off.
The first section of the race would have been fun, but heading east into the sun with dust, literally meant zero visibility other than maybe the first 5 feet in front of me, and being a long race I'd have to do all by myself, I elected to not chance anything and rode painfully slow, by pit 2/3 things had started to clear up good enough that I could ride my own race. Things were pretty uneventful, we did figure that even with the desert tank the yz (with its safe range of about 60 miles, was gonna have to pit every pit aside from being able to skip pit 1. The first real mountain range we crossed was kind of welcome after the dust and silt beds, aside from one particular corner, it was a right hander with a wash out extending about into the halfway point with a cliff, I came into it, it was kinda blind, and theres just 2 bikes chilling there, I hit the wash out and somehow stayed up right and just kept truckin, it was all rather uneventful, I was making sure I got something to snack on at every pit, kept my hydration levels up. Somewhere after pit 5, I saw a bike pulled off to the side and the rider on their knees, I went and checked, and it wasn't that rider, but rather an albuquerque local who was seriously hurt, the other had already called a helo and told me to go, and seeing as how I'm not medically trained, no matter how bad I wanted to help, I figured it'd be best to just do as I was told (liz can be scary when she's frustrated)
This race course, to take a break, is unique, its a point to point running through one of the most sparsely populated states, you spend a lot of time in silt beds, on jeep roads through mountain ranges, and passing through/by small/abandoned towns and left overs from the mining industry, I did a lot of cruising, stuff was uneventful, life was goodish.
Then I rolled into pit 8 (I think?) and was told the info that I wasn't looking forward to, I wasn't going to beat the trucks, and they were right on me, about 2 pits back. Shit. Made it to pit 10, which was the first time in the whole day dehydration had caught me as well as physical exhaustion, I had definietly ridden a bit too hard and not paced myself nearly good enough, catching people and trying to hold them off, ones that weren't iron manning, and trying to deal with teams whose riders are a lot fresher than I was, wasn't a wise move. By the time I hit pit 11, I was nearing survival mode, it was also somewhere near this time, on a rocky (theres no rocks at v2r
I rolled into pit 13, Dan's excitement was livid, you're about to do it, you're about to have succesfully iron manned the longest off road race in the states. I was exhausted, and beat up, and sore, in addition to the cuts from the crash my lips were so chapped they were physically bleeding, my hands had blisters that had been torn open and oozing, a finger nail had been peeled up leaving blood marks in my glove. But a bit of a relief came over me, what could the last 45 miles be in comparison to the previous 455? Well, everyone had told me that the last bit was the roughest, and it was. after leaving pit 13 you got on an abandoned 2 lane pavement that was extremely torn up and jagged, the bike would kick violently and it shook up your body (my forearms were done at this point) so bad it was borderline unbearable, and then it eased out and it kinda seemed like we were in a state park type deal? but anyway, I was running way slow, most of the bikes that were going to finish had finished and I was still out there as the sun went down, but there were plenty of spectators lining the path, and naturally they were incredibly supportive, just having them scream and cheer and wave and fist pump kinda gave me the energy to keep going, and then there was the last 15 miles or so.
Jeep trails, with giant boulders. stuff you have to pick your line carefully through, and it was dark, it took me something like an hour to traverse the last little bit, I was tired, made a few mistakes, not like crashing, but I did hit a rock hard enough that it kicked the rear end and sent the bike headed for hte cliff,grabbed the front brake just in time to keep from starting down the edge, got straightened out, and then boom, I saw it, the lights of the finish line town, I took my goggles off, they were tinted and it was dark, they were filthy anyway, I got into the standing position, loosely rode the bike in, and crossed the finish line nearly 14 hours after I left the start line, Ron and Dan came out clearly excited, didn't have the energy to deal with the slaps on the back and felt like I was about to fall over, got my finisher pin, got told good job, dudes in line for finisher interviews were kinda of blown away, no way they'd want to ride even a section of this thing on a motorcycle let alone all of it, beers were offered, but I didn't have the capacity to drink, waters were slammed, got asked if I needed medical attention, I didn't, ron and dan loaded the bike, ron drove me to the motel in reno, and the most welcome sites in the world welcomed me, a bath tub and a bed.
And that, is how we did it, thank you to everyone who has pitched in to help make this happen, my family, the whelchels, my friends in cali, my friends in gallup, Steve, who helped tear down and make sure the bike would make it, Matt @ Rev Designs for making the bike an attention grabber everywhere it went, everyone who has bought a shirt (I still have plenty to sell if you want one) it has been unforgettable, a once in a life time opportunity. I am eternally grateful for all of you, We did it.
So, what should I do next?
Pit support is key at that race. All of us helped out other riders when their pit crew failed to show. At pit 12, I fueled three bikes, and aired a tire to the moon, so he could make the next pit. Pretty much if you did not have three trucks, you were not going to make every pit. Then if you have a problem and you lose a truck, like some did, you’re stuck.
I hear ya....I'm on hold probably the rest of this year as well, but for family health issues. Need to spend more time in AZ visiting with Dad and heading to Utah to visit with the manager's parents. Will regroup and hit the dez races in 2020.