Sea Otter Classic Pro XC

[Jim Hewett]

The Sea Otter Classic pro XC race is always a challenge for me.  An international field racing a short XCO style course means that the bottom half of racers usually don't finish on the leader's lap.  I've had to accept that I am now finishing in the bottom half of a national level pro field, so it is really a race to see how many laps I can complete before I am pulled.

This year, it was also the first race of the California State Championship Series.  The California racers would be ranked for series points by their finish order, though only if they reported their finish place to The California Dirt Series.  Kind of strange, but I planned to do the whole series so I knew that doing as well as I could at Sea Otter would help.

The field was quite small this year;  about 70 racers down from the usual large field of over 100.  I started a couple rows from the back and we all pedaled as hard as we could up the pavement start.  Due to the smaller field, there wasn't the expected traffic jam as we entered the chicane before the dirt.  In fact, I rarely felt like traffic was an issue in my race.  I rode at my pace, passing and getting passed.  I was feeling pretty good, keeping a steadily high heart rate.  The course was slightly different, with a steep climb and a steep descent added.  Unfortunately, the steep descent was very fast so I was not able to make up any time there.

It was great to have Simon cheering for me at the feed zone, and teammates and friends sprinkled along the course.  I was still keen to race when I was pulled on lap four of eight, just 20 seconds back from a racer that was allowed to go out for another lap.

It looks like I finished 2nd out of 4 racers that reported their time and intend to do the state series.  Pretty shallow field, but I will take the points as we go into the CA Dirt Series races that comprise the rest of the series.