I have heard this most my life, but it has taken me almost 46 years to actually agree. Not sure why, but I love this stuff. What is wrong with me you ask?
• I love being up when it is still dark at 4:20am getting ready for a race
• I love the drive out with the fellas and talking about the race and life.
• I love the drive back and doing as Tom calls it "bench racing". A whole lot of "I could haves and should haves"
• I love the feeling after a super hard ride. Kind of like you just finished finals and now you can party.
• I love writing this immensely self serving and dorky race reports
• And most of all, I love the feeling of the screaming leg pain while riding hard and every now and then causing pain while drilling it.
I suspect the majority of you reading this have similar feelings as I do (though probably not the bullet about writing such silly race reports). So, I would say there is something wrong with all of us. And so, at Winters this past Saturday, a bunch of people with something wrong with them all showed up to race together. Like a Star Trek convention, complete with silly costumes, mythical battle plans and secret handshakes we took the start line. Battleship CoreTechs brought along a Platoon of Tom, Mark, Ricky Lucero, John Pauley, Dave Puglia, Christian, Alan Takahashi, and myself-Andrew.
As battle commenced, we were attacked within the first five miles. This battle was due to last 72. Luckily for starship CoreTechs, our early break designate, Tom Rice, covered and joined the attack. There were four away. We were then allowed to sit in and marshal are troops. Soon we were upon the first outside threat (a hill the size of Hudard park climb-5 minutes in length). The pace to this point was high and climb fairly hard. A few were hit with leg meltdown and were heard yelling: "Scotty, I need more power". Unfortunately, the response of "Captain, this is all the power she's got" came from the leg room and thus their ships were out of the fight.
As we crested the first threat, Tom came back to us. This left three up the road with no member of our ship present. We were thus obligated to add our fuel to the other federation members not up the road. We sent two to the front to help with the chase. We did not expect this chase to last long, but the front three were surprisingly strong and put up a good fight. Finally, as we returned to our main obstacle, we were able to subdue the front three. About 15 minutes later, another attack occurred. We had our shields ready though, and were able to place a CoreTechs member in that attack, thus changing it to a offensive mission. This group had eight present (1 CoreTechs, 1 Third Pillar, 1 Make a Wish, 1 Davis, 2 Taleo, 2 Wells Fargo) and all Federation members had a representative. This was the final attack mission of the day.
The Fed members worked very well together with everyone taking strong pulls at the front in a nice, even rotation. In no time, the peloton was out of site. As we approached the nemesis obstacle for the last time, an attack within the group occurred on the bottom slope. The pace went ballistic and gap between Make a Wish, Davis and Wells Fargo took place. Slowly, CoreTechs reeled them back. As we hit the final switchback, the group was down to five. Both Taleo and Third Pillar blew. We started again working together to make sure that the missing three did not make it back.
With 2.5 miles to go, cramps started to set in. Left leg started to perform independently of body. Arch, calf, and groin all rejected doing anything more. A call went out for help but it went unanswered. As CoreTechs rolled through the rotation, Wells Fargo attacked. Two went with him. CoreTechs was not able to respond. Left leg had seized. Second Wells Fargo just sat on CoreTechs and would not help. Internal conversation: "Noooo". Then cramps eased, power returned. Thoughts changed to, "is it possible to catch front three or should CoreTechs concentrate on getting 4th place and beating Wells guy on his wheel". Chips all in, power down.
Full power and the front three returned to view. We were closing but Wells was getting a free ride. As we got a bit closer, Wells jumped to bridge. CoreTechs jumped to catch his wheel but it turns out only 3/4 of him made the move. Left leg decided to remain seated and for good measure punish the other three quarters for trying to go without him. Wells made the bridge and CoreTechs got a good view of it. Sigh.
Battle was done. Place was confirmed as 5th. A fitting for the convention, mustard yellow t-shirt with poor graphics was won by the team.
After the convention we gathered for lunch and a fun time of "bench racing". Great time, lots of fun. Battleship will be in shop for fine tuning and repairs. Expect to see its return at CCCX on Sept 16th. Could use a full Company, so those held in reserve, give it some serious thought. Season is over in September….for now…beam me up Scotty.
