We arrived at RAM Off Road Park early Sunday to get registered and ready for race day. I was in the 11 a.m. race - C1 (C Super Senior 50+ class) group and my 16 y/o son was racing in the C2 (C 250 class) right after mine. The weather was pretty toasty, with temps around 90, but at least it's a "dry" heat, unlike you east coast folks get to deal with.
I filled up my 3 liter hydration pack knowing that I would probably go through that in the 1.5 hour race. I wasn't too worried about trying to get out front during the start and treated this race more as a marathon, so I started out about mid-pack on the start. The KDX ran really well and did excellent through the more technical stuff, but I was hesitant to do any of the bigger jumps, so I rolled quite a few of them during the first and second laps. After that I said "what the heck" and started hitting more of them until I was jumping all of them by 3/4 through the race. I've included a couple videos of the smaller jumps, and in the first one you can see where I was bottoming out without even getting much air.
By the end of the race I was heating up pretty well and was ready for a chair and some more hydration. I didn't dump my bike at all and ended up getting 5th place, so I was pretty happy. My son also got 5th place in his class which made for an overall good day. I know one thing - if I plan on doing anymore hare scrambles with the KDX, I will definitely do the fork conversion so that I can jump it with confidence. I love the current setup for single track and technical riding, but it's not intended to do motocross the way it's setup now. Even though my lap times would have been faster on my 450 and I probably would have moved up one or two positions, I had more fun riding the KDX, so that made it worthwhile.
Todd
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 1 on Flickr
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 2 on Flickr
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 6 on Flickr
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 3 on Flickr
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 4 on Flickr
2019 CORCS RAM Offroad Race 5 on Flickr
