Psycowpath #2: Swanson River City Shootout

After the abject race fail that was going to Syllamo's Revenge, I was able to console myself with a win in the 2nd round of the Psycowpath Series in the SS class. I was really up in the air about this, since I was not sure if I would be able to get away from planting for a few hours in the middle of the day. However, under the guise of having family in town (my other mother, Laura rolled into the 'Loo for the weekend) I high tailed it down to Bellevue with a few minutes to spare.
I had never really done any of these races before so I was not real sure what to expect. I was afraid the they were gonna have us going down the "gravity cavity of death' that would have resulted in an huge backup in the first 2 minutes, but we were able to detour it.
SS field (8 deep?) rolled out right behind the Pro/Cat 1 group (15 deep?), just ahead of a very large Cat 2 group. On some courses being sent off in front of a big cat 2 group meant you might get caught, but at Swanson its a SS'ers course with little opportunity for power riding.
Its all about the flow at Swanson.
Right from the start I played real conservative and sat in right between the bike shop titans of Chris Wolff and Sean Licari for the first mile or two. Chris was working some sweet lines, but lost his back wheel in a corner right in front of me. I was faced with a situation like this

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Sorry, Chris.
While we were untangling ourselves Sean came around, and I was able to give chase. I chased until we got to the top of the bluff, and was able to slip around. Once I got into open territory, I really felt great, and was able to open things up. The legs have not felt spectacular the last few weeks due to all the standing on concrete floors while counting and packaging seed, but I really felt like I was on rails into the corners On courses as winding and curvy as swanson, it makes such a huge difference to be able to stay off the brakes and really carve into the corners. The best type of speed is when you can carry it all the way through the turns. What a feeling.
The second lap brought me up to Cornbread who looked to be on his last lap of the 3 hour marathon race. As always, Corey had encouraging words, but sounding like he had, had all the fun he could stand for the last 3 hours (and I believe he won the marathon class).
After that it was a matter of riding the Swanson roller coaster through the trees and going to the pain cave in the open field section for 2 more laps.
After the finish I only had time to speak to Sean and Chris before heading back to Waterloo to finish planting my Planting Date study. Was kind of sad I was not able to hang out for the awards and hear how everybody elses race went.
Later that night we got together at Rafals for burgers, where I proved that I am tone deaf and will never be good at Rock band (as an aside, sounds like it be a moonshine and hot-dog soiree at our house after the Battle Royale next week, consider yourself invited).
Then it was another early morning today as I had to get a pre-emergence herbicide over our corn acres while it was dry and the wind was calm. Then managed to sneak out to Platte River for a couple of laps, but I was feeling pretty beat. I always see the same cars parked there on sunday afternoons, I never see the other riders?
What a great weekend!