Good to see both Ricky Dietrich and Kendall Norman, shaking things up in West HS , Big Six and NHHA racing out here in the west. Both have been absent for few years. Kendall is still spot on tip of the spear fast (just won NHHA round 2 seemingly easily), and Ricky still is pushing top ten pro finishes, if he focuses I'm sure he will be within podium speed soon. We had a number of days riding/racing and hanging around up at RynoLand training facility when Ryan Hughes. had that deal going, Ricky was at the top tier then and spent all his training time with Ryno, he was a machine, a very hard riding physical racer. (wow about 10 years ago already)
weird. I watched that vid you posted yesterday (drone shots). Kendall was the first through- I thought: hmmm, pretty good pace. Then next few pro's didn't clear it as well (except someone right after Nick Burson IIRC). As the other classes came through it kept getting worse (and all this time I'm thinking: I think I could do that simple 2-track about that fast) guys dog-paddling up the hill... one guy stalled about 4x's etc. nuthin' but squids with their feet off the pegs by the end of the video. WTH? Now I'm thinking I might not even make it up that itty-bitty hill. So I went back to the beginning of the vid and watched again and came to this conclusion: Norman was flying. bigtime. watch it to the end, and then watch the first 45 seconds again. Or just watch the last 3mins, and then the first 2mins- you'll be impressed.
you can see how steep it is on Johns H Cam viddy, always funny how flat things look. And some of those guys were showing fatigue, the previous sections of loop 2 opened into some tough sections. truth is I went comfortably happy through all those things no drama , the 300 is so easy to control. I always review in my mind what I did wrong and right after a race, this one I cost most time by simply taking my time, the could haves are always there. But I have never pushed the envelope in these H&H races there's just too much risk at the speeds that are possible. So post race review without even considering tip overs or getting a little hung up in spots and held up by other guys in no pass sections because those are just normal racing issues, I could have cut 3-5 minutes off my time by running my big tank and not stopping at the remote fuel pit and more time savings by doing a "real" pit stop after the 60 mile first loop. At the loop A finish I climbed off the bike, ate a banana, drank 16 oz of Ryno go juice, added some Ryno pills, refilled my uswe, peed and filled my tank @ 5 minutes I would say.. No worries H&H is just a big test for me, plus I don't want steal points from H&H season racer John....(hahahaa yea sure!). I can say with conviction there are not a lot of 50+ guys (A.B,C counted) in the country that would finish one of these races in its full course entirety. So that's the test me against the course, not so much against the other classmates. BTW Spinalli just finished the Baja 1000, and our very own John is former Nat 1 so I just happy to be with those guys in class. rock on and I just reconfigured my bike back to offroad single track mode....17MAR is our round 2 of the local series back to my comfort zone....being passed by and following LR through the trails...
