Back from the Firestone Walker Norba Nat #2. A painful affair made more painful by the guy sucking my rear wheel on the second lap that refused to pull through. Then he out sprints me for second place. No honor among thieves. Of course this coming from the guy that lost the sprint and was stupid enough to do the pulling. The silver lining...series lead going into Fontucky this weekend. Woohoo.

Now, onto the good stuff. So I clean myself up and walk my tired bones over to the results board for a quick visual of the prelim results. Nothing posted...hard to believe. This race, as is the case with most Norba's, was being handled by TeamBigBear. You always get the feeling that somehow, there is a monkey quickly squibbling down numbers somewhere to be transposed onto a computer printout. This ultimately is posted to the screams, rants, threats of violence, etc. My race went off late...hard to believe...at about 11:40am. We finished around 1:10pm or so. The sports and beginners went off at 8am. At 2pm when I did my first post race result evaluation, they were just finalizing the sports/beginner categories. That's some four and a half hours post race finish. Yikes! So the dilemma unfolds. Do I stick around to make sure I got scored? Or do I jump in the car and start the five plus hour drive home. I find a couple of sport guys standing around and ask them what's up. They go on about how results were promised at 1pm with the podiums to take place at 1:15pm. It was now 2:15pm and there was no word or action in sight. Unless you include the head dude from BigBear interviewing the Kenda girls for the umpteenth time. The guys look at me and say that the only reason they are hanging now is that they've waited this long. If they could do it again, they would have bolted at 9:30am when they had the chance. It's then that they asked me where I was from and I told them the Bay Area. "LEAVE," they implored. "For the love of (insert the deity of your choice here) leave while you are still sane." I knew this would make the wife happy who was in tow with the chitlands for the weekend. "Hell," I thought. "Maybe I could work this to my advantage. Score some good guy points." So I throw caution to the wind and decide to cut bait. I headed back to the car to find my wife contributing to the AlGore situation and running the car for the A/C qualities. She rolled down the window and asked rather innocently what was up. "Well," I started. "We can wait for the results and podium stuff. But the sports who finished racing like five hours ago are still lurking about and there is no end in sight. Or, we can leave."

"What's the catch," she leveled? "Well, since I'm being so cool and forgoing my spot on the podium, which is the highest step I've ever been on at a race of this caliber, I thought maybe you could help a brother out on the way home if the kiddiewinks fall asleep. You know, a little action ala that 70's style porn that was soooo popular back in the day." It really seemed like a good idea and one that I thought she may go for given the fact that she really wanted to leave. In the process, I thought we might be able to shake things up a little.

Her eyes narrowed and her brows got all pointy like. She looked over her shoulder at the kids to make sure they were fully engaged in the video they were watching. I felt a chill in the air. She turned back to me and in a lowered down, but very intentional tone she said, "you are out of your mind if you think I won't put this car in drive and leave you here. You dragged us down here by telling us we could go to the beach or perhaps the Santa Barbara Zoo. In fact you told us we were going to Santa Barbara. Instead, we end up in some fake Danish Village that is more like being stuck in the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney Land. There's no beach within 50 miles and I end up with the kids for two days in a dusty, wind swept parking lot in 95 degree heat while you either pre-ride or race your bicycle. We will wait for you to get your result, but you get nothing." With the tea leaves so clearly showing me the correct path to take, I quietly loaded my bike into the back of the car, got in, and left. Anyway, hope you are well. I have no more bright ideas.

Johnny GoFast