“I'm hoping to be moved down to Intermediate where I can be more competitive; we'll see if it works out for me.  It's going to be a long year otherwise.”

That was the closing line in my report on the Jean race.  Knowing that reclassifications would be taking place prior to TCCRA race #2905 at Muenster, I sent another letter to the reclassification committee requesting that I be moved down to the Intermediate class.  I was hopeful it would work out for me, but I was not confident; my request had been denied when I sent a letter following the dissolution of the B expert class.

Cindy and I arrived at Muenster late Friday afternoon and set up camp.  The weather was quite nice, though a bit windy and much too warm for my taste; I like anything under about 55 degrees.  I set off on a practice lap with the Buds Beunier, and the lap just reinforced my conviction that I had no business being in the Expert class.  I had planned on a leisurely trail ride to check out the condition of the course.  The younger Bud, who rides in the 125 Amateur class and has been placing well consistently, had different ideas and took off like a bat out of Hades.  I had pledged to ride with them, so I figured I'd better pick up the pace a bit.  So I did.  And so did Bud.  “Jeez, he's going pretty fast, I'd better get off my duff.”  So I did.  I managed to catch up with him, but was going 100% just to do so.  And he just kept hauling buttocks.  I was going all out and don't think I could've passed him.  125 riders, you'd better start preparing now; you're going to be receiving some hide-tannings from this youngster over the next few years.

The reclassification meeting was set for Saturday morning.  As I said, I wasn't confident things were going to work out for me.  Hopeful yes, confident no.  Cindy and I decided we'd go check with Points Officer John West to see if he'd divulge the results of the meeting.  “The vote was unanimous, seven to zero”, he said.  “That's kind of what I expected”, I disappointedly uttered.  You see, John is the owner of one of the best poker faces I've ever encountered.  “We moved you down”, he said with a smile, knowing he'd fooled me.

Yahootie!  I was ready for the race to start right then and there.  Knowing that I'd already missed too many races to be a factor in any points chase (and knowing how wheels-off I usually am in afternoon races), I decided I'd sign up for two classes (125/200 Intermediate being the other), and only ride morning races.  That meant I'd be competing for the first time in a TCCRA race in something other than a 125 class: the over 35 Intermediate ranks.  I'd now be that damn annoying-sounding bike in the class.  And I'd also be one of the youngest riders in my class for the first time.  Though now that I think about it, I'm not sure I like that; it removes an excuse for doing poorly.

Sunday dawned cloudy and somewhat cool.  Wait, can you say a day dawns when it's cloudy out?  Well, the sky became lighter, how's that?  Anyway, I was really excited about a TCCRA race for the first time in quite a while, and really didn't know what to expect from my new competitors.  As things turned out, I had a great time because the other riders were just that in the strictest sense of the word, competitors.

The green flag flew and off we went.  I wheelied.  But wait, it wasn't a weenie-wheelie, popping the clutch right off the line.  No, this was a shifting-into-second-gear-and-hammering-the-throttle-wheelie!  Pretty cool.  Of course it wasn't on purpose, but still.  I rounded the first hairpin turn in sixth or seventh, not bad for a sissy bike.  The course had a fairly deep water crossing about a half-mile in; I wasn't looking forward to this, considering my water anti-fetish.  I'd planned to go wayyyyy wide left to avoid being doused.  If I lost places in the process, so be it; there would be a lot of racing left and my hands would still be dry.

The first few miles were just what I'd hoped for: the entire pack of us stayed pretty close together.  I was still in 6th but could see first up ahead.  One by one their wheels started to shoot off; overshooting a turn here, dumping it in a turn there.  I powered past one guy in a series of medium-to-large sand whoops (take that big bore bike!) and was having a great time.  We were all relatively close in speed, and I didn't have to ride over my head and take unnecessary risks in order to keep the pack in sight.

I chased Roddy Gray (1A) for quite some time before getting by him.  He'd stay close behind me for the remainder of the race.  Kent Climer (D398) got by me and I'd tail him for most of the race.  I passed C.J. Grippin (D331) at the end of a high-speed section down in the beach area.  He'd end up passing me back for good when I bobbled and dumped it on the last lap trying to get past a rider wallowing and nearly stopped in a tight, sandy whoop section.  This was how the entire race went; I was very close to the other riders in the class at every moment.  It was great fun, something that I had been missing for a long time.

I ended up finishing fourth, not bad for a little 125 sissy bike riding against all those fire-breathing 250s and open bikes.  Most importantly again, I enjoyed myself very much.  We'll see if this holds for the next race, when I'll be back with the younger set of the 125/200 Intermediate class at Cleburne.

 
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