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Race day dawned beautiful but spotty rain showers moved through the KC metro area. Luckily for the singletrack and racers the showers passed south of the race venue. The course was a mixture of full throttle flats and big momentum tree swerving. Racers were lined up almost continuously from 9:30 to 11:45 to get registered. Between trail runners and riders there were over two hundred hearty competitors.
Beginners once again followed the blue tape and had a staggered start that took off at noon. The experts were let off a bit later in one of the fastest expert packs of the Midwest. While in the staging area I asked sport racer Lelan Daines of Emporia about his socks- knee high argyles and he replied- "Business socks for business time."
The day continued to be beautiful, partly cloudy skies kept the temperature feeling good. Lap 1, 20 minutes later, and a pack of experts came around together- Tom Price, Chris Ploch, Dave Breslin, Aaron Elwell (2007 NORBA Expert Overall Champion), Shadd Smith, Mark Studnicki, and Cameron Chambers.The fastness of the course was manifest in many racers coming through the timing tent grazed in dirt and some fresh blood from taking a hit sliding and losing control for a moment. By the third lap time gaps began to form in the lead pack, but even on the final lap race action was hot with riders swapping positions and the top four experts finishing on the same minute with Dave Breslin taking top honors. The beginners and quite a few sport racers had finished while parents lined up to register their youngsters for the kids' dirt riding race.
Racers and spectators hung around for the awards and raffle lounging on bikes, eating Polish sausages, and drinking Michelob Ultra and 180 energy drink. The Heartland Mountain Bike Championship Race Series [HMBCS] scored another classic event for the midwest mountain bike scene. Huge thanks to all the Crew for pulling off another spectacular event!
Results are here ->->->-> http://www.heartlandrace.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=6&Itemid=27
Here are a few additional write-ups from the racers themselves ->->->->
http://www.kcdirtbikeracing.blogspot.com
http://chrisploch.blogspot.com/2008/06/heartland-landahl-race.html
http://markstudnicki.blogspot.com/2008/06/hearland-trumans-big-love-holy-moly.html
http://teamseagal.blogspot.com/2008/06/trumans-big-love-redux-big-speed-big.html
http://meetzorp.com/2008/06/23/girls-and-their-mountain-bikes/
Next up: Shawnee Mission 3/6. A 3 hour race. A 6 Hour race. Both at the same time. Saturday, July 19th. Shawnee Mission Park, Shawnee KS.
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