Daughter's race - The Pit XC - Terrell, Tx

[ccdhowell]

Our season is 3 races old and my oldest daughter is getting the feel for her race quad. And finally we came to a track that would give her some breaks. We arrived at The Pit XC in Terrell, Texas late Friday night and set up our hauler. It started raining aobut 5am the next morning and came down in buckets for about 2 hours. A creek on the main track flooded out of it's banks and cut-off most of the woods section of the track. The original plan had to be scraped and the C program would race the big MX track at the facility. This track is cut into an old sand pit with huge elevation changes, big air jumps and is pretty rough with all the sand whoops in it. The MX is about 1.5 miles long. At the pre race meeting it was decided to shorten the time to 45 minutes because it was run totally on the MX track.

My daughter is excited, she loves MX tracks. There were only 2 other riders in her class, both boys, and when the green flag dropped they took off and my daughter quad was a little slower to start, but she got it going and off she went. I was nervous as hell because of the big air I knew she would go for on the rough track. She quickly found her rytham and made up ground on all the other women riders on the track. She passed one on her 2nd lap and another on lap 3, then had a problem. She came up a big step-up jump hill, landed hard and threw her chain. The chain wrapped around the front sprocket and unknown to use at the time, busted the case slightly and tore up the case saver. Anyway, both riders got back by her and with her chain back on she took off in pursuit. Over the next few laps she got back by the two women riders and was closing to within a couple hundred yards of the fastest other female rider when another demon reared it's ugly head. A wire into the CDI box broke on another hard landing and killed the quad. I rushed over to her and it took me a while to figure out the problem, and then the solution...her race went to crap. After 10 minutes or so of working and a small broken stick holding the wire in place it fired up and she limped it home to take the checkered flag. She was a little disapointed, but very proud of herself for having raced so well. At one point her lap times were within 10 seconds of the Masters class riders in the field. I know she'll be much faster in days to come, confidence is a beautiful thing.

Now for the rest of the story. I took the quad apart Monday after work. The wiring harness is shot, one wire completely broke so close to the CDI plug that I can't really fix it good and several more about to break in the same way. A wire from the stator rubbed on the chain and got cut in two, don't really know how it was even running with that wire cut. As far as the broken case, it could have been much worse. It looks like it's only a crack on the lower ear where the case saver attaches. I think I can JB Weld it up and use some silicone on the case saver bolt and it will be ok. When I get this old quad sorted out and running reliably...watch out, my girl's gonna be a speed demon.

Enjoy the pics.

[downfour]

well man sorry about the problems she had. but its kind of a humbling experience when that kind of stuff happens.. atleast it has been for me.. just makes you turn a few more wrenches throughout the week to make sure its not going to happen again... its all part of this wonderfull sport we enjoy.. now go to the garage and get that thing goin...

[ccdhowell]

It's kinda funny, after she got cleaned up after the race back at the hauler, she said that she was gonna have to have a talk with her mechanic about the issues. I told her that her mechanic was taking the week off and going to Jamaica. She was actually good natured about it, but in a 13 year old's way she let me know that it better not happen again. Ahh, the joy of teenagers.

[downfour]

well thats good she was in a good sport about it.. hell she even finished with all those problems.. thats something to be proud of there.. now get to wrenching...