2012 FSC #1--Tallahassee, Florida (9/8-9/12)

It's the start of September, and here in Florida that means that it's the start of another fall race season. Woohoo!! Over Labor Day weekend, my dad and I raced with a lot of our friends from Brick City Bicycles at the 8 Hours of San Felasco/8 Hours of Labor. The highlight of that race was Tinker Juarez showing up to race in the Open Solo Men's division (which he won). He was a really cool guy and talked with us and took pictures with us. He ended up riding behind my dad for 2-1/2 laps and said he thought my dad rode really well, which was the highlight of Dad's day.

The Brick City gang with Tinker Juarez in the middle

My teammate, Ryan Woodall and me

This past weekend was the kick-off of the Florida State Championship series in Tallahassee and I was ready to race. Matt Donovan put together some really good teams for FirstPlaceRacing.com this season, and I got on the best team of all, because I get to claim my favorite Florida Pro racer, Ryan Woodall, as my teammate. How awesome is that?!?  By the way, check out our new black team kits. They are super-sweet!








Anyway, we got up to Tallahassee on Saturday around lunch time for a pre-ride before the individual time trial that was scheduled to start in the afternoon. I was really looking forward to comparing my lap times to the other guys. Unfortunately, a big thunder storm made Dave Berger postpone the ITT until the 3rd series race at Haile's Trail because everything was flooded. Bummer.


Waiting the storm out

Fortunately, on Sunday the weather was really nice and we were able to do the cross-country race.

My class had one of the biggest turn-outs so far, with 19 of us lining up to race. The crazy thing about this course though, is there's a fence with about a 3-foot opening that everyone has to funnel through single-file at the bottom of a hill before you cross a road and enter the woods. Well, I knew other people had hit the fence and some had gone over their handlebars already, so I wanted to make sure I got a good start off the line.

Actually, I had a little trouble clipping into my pedals at the start, but I still made it through the fence just fine, and hit the woods in third place behind Troy and Sam.

Right behind me was Dustin Zimmerman--remember Dustin from last year? It was great to be racing with him again. We've missed him hamming it up for the camera.

That's the other thing that's so cool about being back in Florida racing--seeing all my friends that I haven't seen most of the summer.

Eric and Trent

Nicho

Ethan and Bryce

It turned out to be one very fast race. The pump track and BMX track were taken out of the race due to the rain, so the course was a bit shorter than usual. Troy, Sam and I rode together for a little while, until I passed Troy and Sam, and Troy came with me. The two of us rode together the whole rest of the race. Troy tried to pass me a couple of times, but when I saw him, I stepped on the gas. It was a lot of fun having him push me like that and we finished first and second, having put a gap of a couple of minutes on Sam, who finished third.



Troy finished right behind me

Tallahassee was a very exciting first race of the series and I can't wait to get to Fernandina Beach this coming weekend to do it again!

Juniors 11-14 Podium:  Me, Troy, Sam, Jordan, Ethan A.

Be sure to check out the video from the race.
**Note: For some reason, my dad's video from FSC #2 keeps popping up in the spot where my FSC #1 should be. If this happens to you, just click on the word "Playlist" at the bottom of the video, and select the right video. Sorry. :-(