Where: Delaware City, Delaware
Conditions: Nice in the morning, quickly rose above 90 degrees with no wind to speak of. HOT!
Trails: Mixture of everything boggy marsh, muddy clay, loamy soil, sand, hardpack, some wide open areas, some bar-banging tight in the trees.
Who: Pete Friedman and myself
Date: 4/26/2009

So the event started out the night before with the drive up to Newark, Delaware. We met up with a roadracing buddy for drinks and chatted for a couple of hours. Then it was off the the local Ho-Jo’s for a night’s rest.

Sunday morning was beautiful. Clear skies, perfect weather, and an easy jaunt over to Delaware City for the event. Registration was a 5 minute affair due to both of us having pre-registered.

We set up out pit area and rolled out the bikes for last minute tweaks. I wanted to clean out the jetting with a needle change due to the forecast for warm temps. Pete (Friedman) was having carb issues. It turned out his cable was caught on a lip and the throttle was partially open. Other than that, we set up the gas cans to be delivered to the gas areas along the route. (We taped drinks & food to the gas cans as well.) We hydrated as much as possible, filled our camelbacks and suited up.
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Thursday Apr 9 – The Trip Down

I left a bit later than my 5:00 PM target start … 5:40. Still, not a problem in the grand scheme of things I thought. According to my trusty Garmin I should be there by about 9:00 PM. The route I was taking was Interstate 81 south for the largest part of the trip. It would get me down near Roanoak and then I would turn East and stop for the night at a hotel in Rocky Mount. Once I got out of the DC rush-hour traffic and past Manassas on route 66, the traffic thinned considerably. From there, it was a simple jaunt out to I-81.

I stop for gas at a Sheetz and grab a sub for dinner. Rush-hour traffic put my arrival time back to 9:30. Still plenty early to get a good night’s rest. I’m going to need it for two days of woods riding drills, instruction, and practice.

So I’m trundling down I-81 and Wanda (Nickname for my Garmin GPS direction gadget) tells me to exit off onto Rt 11, then over to rt 43. Looks to be in the correct direction, more of a diagonal trip over to Rocky Mount instead of down to Roanoak the then east to R.M. OK, so I follow the directions. I’m now climbing roads that seem to be going through the mountains, slower, tight, lots of curves, etc. Still not horrible. That’s yet to come.
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