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“My race went pretty well, I had been talking to the team and we had a plan to follow Dakota all day and that is exactly what I did. I followed him from the start to the end of the fourth lap. I would lose him in the fields all in the first five miles because of dust, then catch right back up in the rocky/technical sections on the other side of the mountain. I was definitely much faster in the more technical areas because my bike would track the rocks very well. I saved too much energy all race, expecting a six-lap race but it ended up being only five laps. I made up a minute five miles into the last lap on the leader then had two pretty hard crashes that lost all that time I had made up. I definitely had way too much energy after the race so I will definitely make sure to push earlier in the future. For bike setup, we went two clicks softer on forks and shock in compression. I believe we could have gone a little softer as the track didn’t have many deep rut areas and would have tracked a little better going more soft for the rocks and the hard pack fields. The track was very dusty in the fields and rooty in the first 2-3 miles with the new section. Howard’s hole was fairly easy having a lot of friends down there pointing out the lines. Then it was a lot of fire roads til the 5-mile marker going to the other side of the mountain which was much rockier with big line selections and a lot of downhills and uphills you had to carry momentum through, especially towards the end as everything got much more slick. My bike ran and felt great, I feel great, everything was on point. I’m just learning race craft and trying to get that championship.”
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