My first week end of Racing

Steve Wiexel picked me up from around 5:00 in the morning and me and his wife started the trek down to LA for the La Mirada Grand Prix. The plan was to get down there before traffic hit and have a nice relaxing easing going stress free warm up/ registration. Well it didn't take me long to screw that one up...
About 30 minutes into the drive I realized that my bib and jersey were hanging on the door of my room at home. I had failed to pack them because I figured I would put them on in the morning. Well upon awaking it was rather chilly and I thought since we had such a long drive and about 4 plus hours before the race would actually start I may as well just put on my sweats. Bad Idea! I got busy and forgot to throw them in my bag.
I had remembered to pack an extra jersey. One of my favorites actually. A neon yellow one that dates back to about 1973 (Its freakin awesome). So no problem there.
Kim and her father had spoke and he was trying to put 'something together' but wasn't sure exactly what he still had and if it would fit.
We saw a sign for Walmart and figured it was worth a shot. So we took the exit.
And what followed was an epic experience.
We actually arrived at the doors of Walmart 6 minutes before they opened and took place among the ranks of customers who actually await the opening of said store. INCREDIBLE. (and by ranks of customers i mean 3, but still- ITS WALMART)
We got to the race only to find more trouble. They had lost my number and instead of assigning me a new one right off the bat, they proceeded to search diligently for about 15 minutes. I began to get pretty nervous. I had no clue really what to expect and was starting to worry that I wouldn't have ample time to warm up. Well finally I got a number and I quickly joined Steve in a warm only to realize that there was a crash in the race before us and we were going to start about 20 minutes late.
It gave us a chance to do a couple laps around the course and check out the corners.
Finally we started and maintained a position near the front. I tried to get away a couple of times with some others on the first grade only to realize that no one really had any interest of doing any work. (I had thought prior to the event that I might be able to get away on my own, oh how wrong I was)
All and all I felt pretty good. Despite the fact that I got suckered into to pulling everybody around the last corner before the sprint.
I ended up 6th and was pretty happy I kept all my skin where it belonged and finished my first race near the front.

The following day was the Long Beach Dash for Cash Crit. The Cat 5 was a 30 minute race. And every lap was hot as there was a 10 dollar prize for every single lap. It was a sprint every lap. I managed to win two and was inches away from 2 more. The biggest disappointment came when I was moving into position for what I thought would be the final lap... only to realize I hadn't heard the bell the lap before and had missed out. I ended up 15th.

Two big mistakes my two first races, but I guess you race you learn.

Steve did a great Job as well in La Mirada and took some killer pictures. Check them out on his blong:
http://www.photoscene.com/kimandsteve

Also, it was exiting seeing seeing Mark Fanelli and a couple of guys from the UCSB team kick some ass.

Note to self: Don't pull the field around the final lap; and keep track of what lap Im on.

Happy Riding