Cold... 23 degrees when we started the race on Sunday at 9am. At the riders meeting a club representative told us of the fire the ranch had suffered explaining the long transfer sections and warned us that burned tree limbs do not bend so be very carful and don't get yourself stabbed. I met Richard Henrich at the start of the race on his very new looking 2011 Gas Gas. He was there to sweep the course and it was good to meet him (fortunately on the start line and not on the course). We started with a long transfer and everyone was complaining of frozen fingers and noses, i was really wondering if was tough enough to finish this one, there was no way i could stand this all day. But half way thru the first test section i was toasty warm even though it was sleeting, I remained warm for the rest of the day and was really over dressed, but i was afraid to remove any thing, as i was already wet from sweat. Next time i will have a better idea of what to wear, so this was a good learning experience. There were 5 test sections with the first four being relatively short and fast this is where the short course finished, the fifth test test was an AB only section. I won the first four tests despite blowing my front tire near the beginning of the four test, another testament to how good the tubliss set up is, it didn't slow me too much. A friend gave me his front wheel as he had blown his shock in the first test and was done for the day. After a quick change I was off again and now it was really snowing. It would snow about 3 inches in the next hour. As i began the last test it was visually quite disturbing with the large snow flakes coming down, additionally the snow was filling in the ruts making navigation very hard and it was difficult to see the course markings. Soon enough though Cole Kirkpatrick came blowing past me and knocked the snow off the top and that helped for a bit. As he past me there was a group of javelina pigs that broke our attention and we both blew the next corner. Quickly he was gone from sight and sound and his tracks were increasingly vague. It was getting very slick and was just limping home at this point but determined to finish. I did finish and somehow in a world that makes no sense at all barely held on for the win. About 6 inches of snow fell during the race I will remember this one for a long time.
