NEOC Millville Race Recap

The North East OffRoad Championship Series kicked off its inaugural season at Osmond Farms in Millville, NJ. For holding its very first Round ever, the event went off like the series has been around for years. Sign up was fast and easy, transponders worked great, we started precisely at 1:30 and the results were posted by the time I got my gear off.
For the middle of March the weather was a bit nippy and wind gusts put a good chill through your bones. Spectators had to grin and bear it for the remainder of the day but the riders warmed up as soon as the bike did. I decided to ride my regular race gear instead of the winter gear that I have been wearing for the past couple of months. Good thing that I did because as soon as we took off it felt like late fall - perfect racing conditions.
I didn’t get such a hot spot on the starting line because I arrived after they opened the gate. I lined up way to the left of the 20+ line which put me aiming for the outside of the first left handed turn. I got some major wheel spin when the flag dropped but I guess you’ll have that when you’re starting in sand. I was probably in the top eight for the first couple of turns and then kept a rushed pace through the first half mile. After the track twirled through a sand pit it dove you right into the woods and 80% of the trails through the woods were tight, super tight. I’m talking one lined and some trees were so tight that I would here a ping from the spring snapping my foot-pegs back. I’m not one for the stop and start tracks but today was just a warm up to make sure my conditioning was in check and the bike was set up right. After the 2nd lap I knew that something just wasn’t right but I couldn’t pin point it. It was on this lap that my rival competitor caught up to me and made a pass. I didn’t mind because I wanted him to set a pace and then I’d wait for him to make the mistake. We were blitzing as best as we could through such tight terrain and I was taken out by a lapper. I recovered quickly and made some ground back on my target. When I was pushing a bit harder I finally realized that it felt as if I was working against the bike, we just weren’t gelling together. I continued to push and realized that I just couldn’t hold on to the bike for some reason. The trail was super whooped out and crazy tight with trees - not an ideal situation for not being able to hold onto the bike. It felt as if my grips were just rotating around the handlebars, which made it a little tough to hold on when having to clutch, break, and gas so much on the tight trail.
I figured out what happen was this: I wear glove liners under my riding gloves to prevent blisters, I wore them at the end of last year and every time I rode this winter. They felt fine every time, but I wear a different glove when I practice – a smaller glove, which kept the liners tight. My race gloves are a bit bigger, so because the liner gloves were worn down they were like another piece of fabric moving below my gloves. This is why my hands were constantly shifting on the grips. Now that you’re confused and annoyed you are a lot like I was after crashing twice trying to push half way through the race. I was even more ticked off that I felt great condition wise but I just couldn’t ride to my ability since I couldn’t hold onto the bike. When all was said and done I was pretty ticked off but in the long run this race didn’t even matter, it was just to make sure stuff like this shouldn’t happen at the first round. And the first round will be here in less than a month…. I’ll have all this tuff ironed out and definitely be ready by then!
I would like to thank my sponsors for all of their support this season; DHAGGS Harescramble Racing, MSR Racing, Scott Powersports, Kenda USA, DP Brakes, Scott USA, TAG Metals, Decal Works, Twin Air, IMS, Devol Eng., FMF, TM Designworks, Cycra Racing!