Race day is always exciting, and Sunday at Okemo was no exception. We headed down the hill back to Jaba Baba’s for our coffee and food fix, then headed to the pits. I volunteered to work the corners, and was assigned to checkpoint 2. Basically, the job of the corner workers is to report in to control when cars and bikes safely pass the checkpoint. That way, if there’s a problem control can alert the rest of those on the hill to slow down–the last thing you want is to have a car off the road in a ditch and not alert the next car, which is already making its way up the hill. Quite fast.

Check 2 workers on race day! (Photo: Sandy Warner)

Fetching headset, no?

Sandy took some awesome pictures of Team MAX:

Fam run on race day. (Photo: Sandy Warner)

I love pictures like this, where the riders are all at different points on their bikes!

Max on the Megamoto. (Photo: Sandy Warner)

Most of the day went as planned, but during the second run of the B group (cars are divided into “A” and “B” groups; the bikes ran at the end of the B group for the first run, and thankfully, at the end of the A group for their second run), one of the cars had an “off the road” incident, and was rather firmly planted in a ditch. The driver was fine (thank goodness, we’re always, always happy to hear that come over the radio), but the extrication was difficult as it was a ways up the mountain and as I mentioned rather firmly stuck. Since the car was blocking the road, no one could go up–or down. Since there’s only one road up, all of the cars in a group do their runs, and remain in a “holding area” at the top of the hill. When all cars have run and the course is clear, they are allowed down by control.

Bikes at holding, on race day. (Photo: Andrew)

Victor--aka, "control" (Photo: Sandy Warner)

Workers remain on the hill until the last car is down, as we need to let control know when all of the cars are safely off the hill. Control–Victor, at every hill climb I’ve attended–has one of the toughest jobs on the mountain. He times the vehicles as they leave start, and keeps track of them on the hill. If he notices a gap in reporting a vehicle in, he immediately asks. You’d think we’d hear a car sliding off the road, but the acoustics on the mountain can be pretty weird–a car that passes suddenly can sound like it’s coming back, and sometimes once out of sight, you can’t hear them until they make the next turn.

The incident stopped runs until mid-afternoon–but, that’s part of the process. Hill climbs are a lot of fun–safety always comes first, for riders and for workers.

Andrew and I had to leave at 3:00, so we missed the last run of the day. There’s always the next hill climb! Sunday’s results are posted here (PDF).

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