PIR ITT #1

This past Sunday was the first of two ITT's at Portland International Raceway. The Time Trial is 6 laps and around 11.5 miles in length. This is the 2nd year they have hosted an ITT at PIR and last year's was great, so I expected a similar experience again this year.

With the length of the track and riders going off at 1 minute intervals the largest number of riders on the track at any given time would be around 30, which on a nearly two mile track means lots of room to move around and constant carrots to chase on the track.

The weather was great with temperatures in the low 60 degree range, but there was a good headwind down the front straight, which is the longest and straightest part of the race. The back stretch had a tailwind but was the most protected from the wind, so it didn't quite make up time wise that was lost on the front straight.

Looking at my times, I went out fast on the first lap then fell off for the second lap. After that I leveled off until the 5th lap that was a little slower, the picked it up for the final lap.

I was hoping to beat my time from last year, but the wind conditions made that hard and from the times it seems like overall...everybody was slower than last year. Comparing the times I was 4 seconds slower this year than last, but when looking at my overall placement I was higher placed than last year.

I ended up with a time of 25:18 with an average speed of 27.1 mph and 2nd in the Masters 40+ division...Overall I had the 5th fastest time on the day (though two of those times were by the same rider racing in different categories) and was the 4th fastest rider on the track.

I'm pretty happy with the result as this is around 7 weeks earlier in the season than when this race took place last year and my weight is finally starting to get down to where it needs to be. I hit a dehydrated 194 pounds last week, but morning weights are closer to 197-198 pounds...so I still need to drop another 8-10 pounds to be where I want.

I'm planning on racing Kings Valley this weekend, which looks to be another nice weather weekend...should be interesting to see how that goes this year.