the sea clam report

I didn't go to the Grand Sea Clam Pro Cycling Nascar Classic in monterey last weekend, but some of our skinnier guys were there, and they were all over it.

I did the Laguna Seca Shimmy when I was a much smaller junior lad, and I can tell you, that course is not even close to fun. Everyone always talks about "corkscrew this" and "corkscrew that" and "oh you gotta watch out for crashes," but by my memory, that's a bunch of crap. In order to get to the corkscrew you have to come up this steep bastard of a hill (which is way bigger than it looks on TV) so once you hit the corkscrew descent you're crosseyed anyway, and then once you actually go down it, you realize that it's probably only fun at about 200 miles an hour. Nice wide, smooth, easy corners that wind down to a 180 and back around to the front straight, which just means that you'll be heading back up that stupid hill in a couple of seconds flat. So if you're on a rediculously powerfull motorcycle or a fantastically expensive car, it's probably great. Maybe even hair-raising. On a bike however, I have a trickier commute home from work.

That doesn't stop the marketers from touting the Sea Clam Classic as the greatest race ever to grace the face of the world, and it continues to pull huge sponsorship dollars, tons of people and lots of industry bigwigs with deep pockets. So a result at the Sea Clam is a big deal. Which is cool, because the Rubicon guys pulled a big result.

Aaron Skeletor Tuckerman rode like a man possed with a bike racer, bridged a bunch of gaps, successfully didn't crash and even managed to drop last year's winner Andy Badjadali in the closing laps by flexing his diminutive little buttcheeks and attacking on the hill, eventually finishing 5th. Brad apparently showed some power-cards by shuttling Tuckie around all day, with Logan doing his part as well. Dan and Kirk overcame gravity to place very well, 10th and 19th respectively. Matt Brandt snagged 18th and the Best Young Rider award, and Richard kept his current streak alive by running into some mechanical issues. Hopefully he can shake the curse sometime before Hood.

The boys even found time to chat with some schoolkids about racing, foreigners and that kind of stuff. I spent my weekend glaring at kids trying to ride big-wheels into stacks of carbon road bikes. The books show we had a record weekend at the shop, which is cool. My brain says that I need to sleep, but what does it really know? I have a three hour Codes and Ordinances class tonight, should be plenty of time to catch up on the zzz's.

DT