This weekend I was at Caruaru, 130km west of my home town. It was the Caruaru motofest, a motorcycle meeting, and two enduros, one saturday and another sunday. I got together with my friend Adson on his Chevrolet Montana pickup, with my XR250 Tornado and his XR200R. We got there early evening on friday and subscribed for the race. After the pre-race briefing, we went to the see the bikes on the motorcycle meeting. The Yamaha R1, the most beautiful street bike is becoming popular! Also I saw a couple of Kawasakis KZP1000, retired from the brazilian police. Mike, you're right, awesome bikes... A bike with a vw beetle engine (the huge and ugly Amazonas) was there on display too... Lots of beer later, we went to sleep.
Saturday was the first enduro of the race. I was one of the last to start on my class, because the starting order follows the finish order from the last enduro, which I did not race. I started doing great, zeroing almost all the checkpoints. I was really happy with the bike - at that point, my only complaint was with the handlebar, badly bent from my last crash - and I was having lots of fun. My first mistake was very stupid, I missed a turn, getting myself 50 points on a hidden checkpoint right after the turn. Another highlight was that nasty downhill. Lots of fallen riders, but I agree when people told me I would be a better rider after Idaho. True that. I loved the twisty downhill and got 40 points on the checkpoint down there just because a rider crashed on the single track blocked the way and I had to help him to get myself back on the race. Couple hours later, I still was zeroing almost all checkpoints, when, after a checkpoint where I lost 9 points, I crashed. In front of him. Weird!!! What was going on? 100 yards later, I found out: Flat front tire. Better yet, ripped front tire, the lateral had a hole that I could put my finger there. Oh well, the fix-a-flat spray is useless. Stoped and checked the trail map: 40km to the end of the race. I was already on kilometer 95 and there was a "special" section on the end of the race, that doesn't count for the final result, just a paralel championship, all you have to do on the special section is go as fast as you can. Before the special, I was struggling with the bike to keep it on two wheels. I got a 40 on the next checkpoint, 70 on the second and 100+ on the last checkpoint before the special. I limped on the special section and finished the race. Guess what? I was leading (with a 50 points advantage) the enduro - on my class, of course - before I had the flat. I was going to win that thing! I finished in 5th, barely ahead of Adson, the 6th...
One of the riders of my class borrowed me a used - but in good condition - front tire (this guy happens to be a lawyer, who told lawyers are bad?) and the 24hs tire shop had a new tube for $6 and installed the front tire and the new tube for free.... Great! My dinner that night was a mega hamburger - a fat hamburger with egg, cheese, bacon and salad - and I went to the meeting to have a couple beers and look at the big bikes. Went to sleep and be ready for sunday.
Sunday race was supposed to be more difficult than the one on the previous day. Yeah, right! I was doing better than ever on this race, I even zeroed a checkpoint after a nasty hillclimb with rocks, switchbacks and loose gravel, just like the ones at Idaho! Doing great, having fun! Saturday we did not had many reallly tight single tracks, but sunday was mostly on tight single tracks and cattle tracks, with one or two abandoned dirt roads from when Brasil were a colony... Until that mile-long uphill climb. After helping rider #62 and #45 more then four times - each - I looped my bike over me twice, breaking the trail map case and depleting my energy. To make things worse, a rider from a class that wasn't supposed to climb was trying to go over me, and he pushed my bike to the wrong direction. Well, I had to push it to the right direction and after that I was almost passing out. It was noon and it was like 40 degrees centigrades. With all the gear on... And I ran out of water on the hidration pack.... I laid down under a bush and almost fall asleep, I was really really bad... A quick check on the clock said I was more than one hour late - 20 minutes is enough to make you lose the checkpoint - and I decided to turn back and head straight to the special section. Too bad, I missed more than 10 sections and almost 10 checkpoints, in other words, end of the race for me. I had a blast on the special, making 2 minutes and 2 seconds, ahead of all the guys I talked to, but I am a mid class rider, "crazy junior", who rides a WR250F for sure made it with a better time than me, not to mention almost the entire Master class... For my surprise, I finished in eight place on the enduro, because I was not the only one that had really bad problems in that hill. Due to problems on the computer, nobody knows the finish order of the special section...
All in all, I had great fun. My right wrist hurts badly, but is a good pain. Can't wait for next month, the next time I will have a better luck, for sure...