Race: Perry Mountain 24 hour
Date: June 6-7
Location: Maplesville, AL
We ventured south towards the hot, sticky weather in Maplesville, Al for the annual 24 hour race. The weather was hot and humid, but the track was perfect because of the week long rain storms that had passed trough. The track was in the best condition I had ever seen it in, loamy sand, sticky clay and not a spot of dust.
The track was 10 miles in length, and had many different sections. There was a perfectly prepped MX track, hills, fire roads, tight woods, rocks, sand and hardpack waiting for us each and every lap.
Overview of the race:
I got a decent start and went into the woods around 5th. I moved up into 3rd pretty quick and when we stopped and switched riders (after the 2nd lap) we where still in 3rd.
We fell back a few spots in the next few laps but gained the positions back after our first rotation, putting us in a battle for 3rd.
Then we decided to try and get the riders to do 3 laps instead of two and that’s when things started to go bad for us. We ran out of gas twice in one lap which really hurt us and put us 15 minutes behind 2nd.
We then searched high and low for an oversized fuel tank so we could go 3 laps instead of 2. We found a fuel tank from one of the officials and it was off a 2001 YZ 250. It bolted up on our spare bike with some work so we decided to make the change. We changed the tank out and now we where good to go 3 laps and start making up some time. The fuel tank rocked back and forth so bad I thought it was going to snap the shrouds off, but it never did!
We got within 3 minutes of 2nd place just as the sun set. A few laps later, we had finally caught them and then disaster struck again. Our rear hub exploded at the 9 mile marker, and it looked as if we were going to throw in the towel.
We hiked back into the woods and changed out the wheel, bent the chain guide back and straightened the chain and we off and going again. We where almost a complete lap down by the time it was all said and done.
We kept plugging away all night and when the sun came back up we where pretty sure we could get into the top 5 overall. As the hours wound down, we moved into 5th place overall with 3 hours to go.
We where gaining on 4th place but thought we would run out of time to catch them.
We where content with 5th place after all that happened and with 1 hour to go (2 laps) the bike came in on a tow strap with a broken lower rod bearing! That was it for us.
It was one of them races where we kept getting up after being beat down, only to get beaten down again.
All of my team members Tyler Macdonald, Matthew Nix, BJ Capps, Dylon Hembree, and Corey Macdonald rode great and it was just soo disappointing to be that close after all we had overcome to have that happen.
I want to give a special thanks to Darryl at cyclops for helping us wire the headlight from Trail Tech at the last minute at the race and making our trek through the night an easy one. We never had one flicker from our bike light or our Cyclops helmet lights. It made the race much easier!
Also, our pit crew of stayed up more than 24 hours to help us with all of our needs. The pit crew makes or brakes your race and I thank them for all of their hard work.
Team Riders:
Jason Raines
Corey Macdonald
Tyler Macdonald
Matthew Nix
Dylon Hembree
BJ Capps
