UVU Crit Racing

Nobody's ever said I'm not a total goofball when it comes to racing...especially crits. But when a crit series is brought to my end of the valley, darn right, I'm going to go support it!

I showed up to the race early so that I could watch the kids race. So cute! One especially cute little guy was out there on his tiny BMX bike giving it his all with his little legs a-flying. He had just learned to ride his bike a week earlier and had been excited to race it.

After the kids race, I had planned on warming up while the A/B flite raced. But as I was standing there a couple of things changed my mind. First, it was unclear whether there would be a C/D flite race later because it looked like there wasn't very many people there to race. Second, the only other girl who showed up, Christy from Intermountain Financial, encouraged me to come race the A/B flite with her. So I lined up with everyone else, not thinking about how long this race was going to last, or how fast it was going to get going.

The first lap was neutral, and it was fun to hang with the big boys, but as soon as we came to the start/finish line for the second lap I could hear them ramping up, WHOOSH, and they all took off. I was dropped in no time.



I rode around and around the course, alternating trying to find someone to catch and waiting to get lapped so I could TRY to catch back on with a group. But they were way too fast for me and I couldn't ever grab a wheel. Best Draft Ever (BDE) had come out and raced too, and his wheel was the wheel I tried to catch the hardest. After about 20 minutes of frustration (and getting lapped by BDE TWICE already), I was done. I pulled off the course and watched Holly, the ref, scorekeep. I figured that scorekeeping practice was a way better use of my time since I will be the ref at this race in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure where BDE ended up finishing, but when I first pulled out of the race, he was sitting in 4th place. Pretty impressive for a Cat 4. Christy was awe-inspiring to watch too. She looked strong and was able to catch and hold the wheels of the fast guys.

By the time the A/B flite was done, more people had showed up to race. So I lined up again and raced with the C/D flite. I fared much better in this group. I didn't even lose, even though I was the only female racer! The best part was that I was able to work with the group this time, and I even put in some good efforts to pass some of the guys. I'm not too sure some of them were thrilled with it.



I've found that one of my favorite pastimes is to walk up to someone I recognize from the blogging world and say "Hi, (insert name here)!" Then I like to stand back and watch the look on his or her face while they try to figure out where they know me from. It's quite entertaining. Such is the case with this guy last night:

I asked for a picture so that I could remember the night I got my butt kicked by Sleevie.