Y'all, the struggle is real. I've been having major sleeping issues lately thanks to all of the night races and getting in at 1 and 2 am. To be able to stay awake to drive home equals tons of caffeine that then keeps me wide awake while I am trying to get any sleep. This is carrying over to several of the days within the week post-race. Not really sure what to do about it. I hate sleeping issues. I've always struggled with this problem, and it's really gotten bad the older I get. So, this week has been brought to you by caffeine, caffeine, and more caffeine.
Our goal was to go to the third race of the clash, learn a lot, have some fun, and beat any kids that were close to Andrew's size. Let's just say we hit one of our goals to beat some truly big kids and we spent lots of great time with our friends, but extra fun was not had, and we never got to do anything other than sit at the racetrack. I love spending time with the group but dang it, I wanted Andrew to enjoy the mountains that I so loved when I lived in the front range years ago post grad school.
Let's begin. The boys (Andrew, Noah, Josh and Tony) drove all night to get to Colorado Thursday mid-day after not sleeping for a full 24 hours. After a quick nap, they started trying to dial in the heavy 160s. After many attempts and only marginal success, they gave up as we rolled into town (Crystal and I and the cuties) to check into the hotel.
Most of the club was staying at the same hotel so we had a group dinner and then the kids got much needed pool time. The men promptly fell asleep, and I was of course wide awake due to not one but two people in my family snoring their guts up. The following picture was the closest I got to any type of Colorado beer. I present to you, mountain piss.
Friday was a full-on practice day, and we had tiny hopes of being able to do something fun. Spoiler alert, we could NOT figure out the track and the guys worked all day trying to dial the cars in. The track was super flat, and the pits and hot chute were full of rocks and were eating tires. I felt so sorry for the dads as they worked so hard and had no success.
We could see the mountains far off in the distance, but that was the extent of mountain time. We did get to spend some time with Tracy and Randy at the end of the day. I lived in their basement in Golden Colorado back in the day and they are like second family to me. They had to head back due to an early morning of work, but it was so good to get to see them even if it was for only a few minutes.
We ended the night with pizza and pool time for the kiddos and lots of really frustrated dads.
Saturday was race day number one. I still don't know exactly how we finished but he gave it his all with what we had, and I am super proud of him for that.
We had seen the bigger kids at weigh ins and he knew what his goal was, and he raced his butt off to do so. Unfortunately, we only got through the heats and one feature before rain started coming down.
God bless this club, they tried so valiantly to get the features in, and it just wasn't meant to be. They would delay, dry the track, and then the next storm would move in. I am glad it wasn't our club who had to make a decision. After many rain delays and attempts to go back to racing, the call was made to end.
We ended the day with the clash saying everyone would just get a blanket number of points and we would move on to the next day.
Sunday dawned with a very important message that we were going to vote on what to do. While I missed the meeting, it was presented that we could do features from the day before with time limits and then heats and features or do the blanket points idea and start our race day fresh. While most of the people in our club did NOT vote to do the features first, since we all had to get on the road and to work the next day, the vote and decision was made to go forward with features, heats, and features. Sigh.
I was out in a field with a tripod the entire two days working for our club doing a live feed. I like being busy, but we had sunburns, bugs, and a wind gusts that tore up the canopy. The Studie family let me crash with them all weekend, and I am so grateful to have had their company the two days of racing. They kept me in sunscreen, kept me from freaking out when Andrew's animal car was biking, and just overall kept me sane.
I've never seen my boy so tired yet pushing so hard. He ran three 40 lap features which are always more than 40 laps, three 20 lap heats, and three more 40 or more lap features. I think his best finish in the features was a 5th place in an 11-car field in Heavy 160, but what I am most proud of is him pushing himself and never giving up.
As soon as the races were done, we loaded up and headed out and drove all night to get back around 7 am. I of course had to take another day of PTO because no sleep basically for 3 days meant I was toast. It was short and sweet and great times with our track family. We had some kids have success in every class. While our success didn't look like a podium finish, for being the second biggest kid there, I will take every car he passed and every race he pushed as hard as he could. I will take him making a decision to pull off and be safe since his car was biking. I will take him getting in the cars race after race and doing his best with whatever his dad gave him and never complaining.
Till next time! We have one more stop on the American Clash tour but also would love to head back to either Minnesota or Tulsa just one last time before we hang it up. Have a great week y'all!
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