24 hours of Moab pictures

What do you get when you combine desert racing, fuzzy math and a whole lot of rain?

You get the 12th annual 24 hours of Moab.

I decided to compete in the Duo-Pro category at the 24 hours of Moab. My partner in crime was a well-known x-terra racer and software programmer. If you didn't guess it, I'm talking about the famous Dan Ourada!

We hit the trails smiling on Saturday morning. Sure, the rain was coming down like Bush's approval ratings, but that didn't bother two hard-core hitting muthas like us. We were determined to race and WIN!

The first lap was the LeMans style start. I encourage you to look at my previous blog if you want to get an idea on that maddness. The second lap was mine! I held the fastest lap time for an hour or so - 1:12 (I could have gone so much faster had my front der. not gunked up and crocked out). On the third lap Dan brought the thunder. I guess the rain followed quickly thereafter, because it began to rain. By the sixth lap, we were in third place and it was dark. I packed on my lights and headed out in the sideways rain. Canyons of mud flowed past me. The course was covered in fog. The racers were in a daze because they couldn't see the ground or the upcoming terrain.

After my night lap, the race director called the race to a close. He said it was too dangerous. Now, I could agree with this assesment, however, I was able to ride most of the course. The less-advanced riders would have more trouble during these nights laps.

The director stated that all racers would start at, or near, 7:45 AM. But, when 7:45 came the race director did more than shoot the gun to start the race. He went into this crazy detail about how racers would begin racing for the day. The reason for the complicated response was the director had to calculate the starting times for 360 teams. The coordination problem began when he cut the race short. If a racer, like me, was out on the course an excel calculation had to determine if my night lap should be counted or not. To this day, I still don't understand it.

We ended up starting our final lap at 10:45 AM on Sunday. So, basically, it was the 10.5 hours of Moab, not the 24 hours of Moab.

The race was a blast and I recommend doing it, but make sure the weather will be slight, because you might have to know trigonometry to understand the tiered racing format they have at the 24 Hours of Moab.