Tony Winn Project 3
Where to begin… Perhaps a history lesson, 3 years ago, some friends of mine decided we’d try to do a mountain bike race put on by Red Trail Racing. Red Trail is known for putting on races on some of the most difficult terrain in Florida. So, my friends, Josh and Paul decided to give their 6 Hrs. of Carter Road Park a try. That year, as a team we completed about 7 laps.
The following year, Red Trail created a corporate course. That year Josh and I decided to ride in the solo competition as the terrain was much easier and we figured we could survive. Josh managed to finish in 3rd place and I pulled out of the race early for medical reasons.
That brings you to today. Josh, Paul and I had a reunion run of this race. This year, we rode in the corporate team classification. We figured if we completed 10 laps we’d be competitive. Once we arrived, we received news that there were many more teams this year. We didn’t mind the extra competition; we figured “The more the merrier.”
We were off to a good start with Josh taking the start and the first lap, followed by a lighting fast lap by Paul. I started my lap trying to catch the rider in front of me. This really turned out to be a bad idea, but I don’t think it hurt the team in the end, I completed my lap with a decent lap time, it was much better than I had expected. We continued in this fashion until we completed 12 laps and had no more legs left.
While we made a tremendous effort, the top 3 teams had completed 13 laps. Nonetheless we were proud of our effort and left the race in good spirits. It’s not every day one puts an all out effort into riding a bike 22 miles over a total of about 2 hrs and walk away.
On a side note: There were several people taking pictures, hopefully I can find one of us riding to post somewhere.