Brighton Stage Race

This weekend was the Brighton Stage Race. At the beginning of the year, I'd planned that this would be my first race, but, obviously, it hasn't worked out that way. The Rhinos were the sponsoring club this year, so I decided to go out and help.

I ended up marshalling one of the first corners on the TT course, where it came out onto the road. It was pretty uneventful: only two cars went through over the whole 2+ hours I was there. But, you need someone there, just in case.

It was kind of interesting to watch the entire field go through. I mean, I watch other racers when I'm at races, but not every single person! It was a pretty non-technical corner; the only thing that made it a little tricky was that there was a little sand at the edge of the road, and then the road itself was a little loose. After watching a few people go through, it became clear that the best line was to start wide and turn late, getting most of your turning done in the dirt, and then go more-or-less straight through the sand and onto the road. Something about the trail visually sucked you to an inside line though. Nobody crashed, but quite a few people were surprised at the lack of grip in the road.

Anyway, I'd say almost all of the Elite racers took the correct line, about 75% of the Expert racers did, less than 50% of the Sport riders did, and almost no Beginners got it right. Although, by the time you got to the slower Sport and Beginner riders, they were going slow enough that the line really didn't matter. For the record, I probably would have ridden the corner wrong if I'd been racing.

Near the end of the race, a racer rode up to my spot and started waiting for his kid to come by. A bunch of kids had just passed a few minutes earlier, so we figured that he missed him. Anyway, it got me thinking that, hopefully, I'll still be racing in another 10-15 years. In that context, missing a season because of injury isn't such a big deal, just a bump in the road.