I'm covering a few races in this post:
Wed 8/17- 2nd to Colton, 5 total; Gianluca 3rd
Sat 8/20- 4th in State race out of 8 (to main); 9 total
Wed 8/24- 1st place out of 5, Jacob in 2nd; Gianluca 6th
Wed 8/31- 1st place out of 3; Gianluca 2nd
Things have been a little crazy busy since getting back from our summer travels: back to school, new school for Anthony, birthdays for Gianluca and Alessandra, but we did manage to squeeze in some racing!
Anthony started off the late August cycle with some trouble getting out of the gate. He's tending to lean to his right when anticipating the gate, which of course throws off his balance and almost always sends him sideways out of the gate. We're working on correcting that now, and it seems as though we've made a little progress (although he usually gets very annoyed when I point it out to him).
Anyway, aside from suffering bad starts in almost every race, he's otherwise done pretty well. Colton is going much quicker on his new bike, and is definitely giving Anthony a run for his money. They're pretty equal overall at this point, but each have their strong points. Right now Colton is getting much better starts that Anthony, and is also relatively quicker than him on the front straight. Therefore Colton usually has a nice gap on Anthony leading into turn one. Anthony, on the other hand, is much faster than Colton (and almost all of the other kids) into and exiting turn, so he usually exits turn one very close, if not ahead of, Colton. They're pretty close down the second and third straights, but Colton is usually able to close on Anthony coming into turn three, and it often ends in a tight run to the finish in practice.
Unfortunately Colton has only been able to make it to one of the last four races, and he actually beat Anthony by a good gap in that race. It'll be fun to see these two battle it out until Colton moves on to the 6 yr. old class later this year. He has the momentum against Anthony (and others) right now, but Anthony will be trying to deliver an upset or two in the next several weeks!
Anthony did very well in his first state race. We didn't get the turnout we were expecting (around 15) as there were only nine entries in the 5 and under novice class. So there were two first round motos of five and four, of which the top two from each advanced directly to the main. The remaining five riders raced for the remaining four spots on the gate, i.e. only one rider didn't advance to the main.
Anthony should have finished second in his first moto, but didn't (let's just leave it at that). So he had to race moto two, which he won. He got another bad start in the main, but came out of turn 1 close to the leaders in fourth. He tried to take third with an outside pass in turn 2, but was unsuccessful. From there he seemed to just settle into fourth and cruise to the finish. Perhaps he didn't realize that he was fourth because he sure was upset that he didn't get a trophy! Oh, well; that's the way it goes sometimes, overall he did very well (but of course he didn't want to hear that).
He redeemed himself the following two Wednesday nights with commanding back to back wins (although with no real competition), which now bring his total wins up to four. And he now understands the concept of having to win 10 novice races to move up to intermediate, so watch out!
Gianluca loves racing too! He doesn't get it quite the way Anthony did, but he's definitely having fun, and is always looking forward to Wednesday nights. He finished second in last night's race, and was very content!
That's it for now....
Hanging with Donny
Wed 8/31- 1st place out of 3; Gianluca 2nd
Things have been a little crazy busy since getting back from our summer travels: back to school, new school for Anthony, birthdays for Gianluca and Alessandra, but we did manage to squeeze in some racing!
Anthony started off the late August cycle with some trouble getting out of the gate. He's tending to lean to his right when anticipating the gate, which of course throws off his balance and almost always sends him sideways out of the gate. We're working on correcting that now, and it seems as though we've made a little progress (although he usually gets very annoyed when I point it out to him).
Anyway, aside from suffering bad starts in almost every race, he's otherwise done pretty well. Colton is going much quicker on his new bike, and is definitely giving Anthony a run for his money. They're pretty equal overall at this point, but each have their strong points. Right now Colton is getting much better starts that Anthony, and is also relatively quicker than him on the front straight. Therefore Colton usually has a nice gap on Anthony leading into turn one. Anthony, on the other hand, is much faster than Colton (and almost all of the other kids) into and exiting turn, so he usually exits turn one very close, if not ahead of, Colton. They're pretty close down the second and third straights, but Colton is usually able to close on Anthony coming into turn three, and it often ends in a tight run to the finish in practice.
Unfortunately Colton has only been able to make it to one of the last four races, and he actually beat Anthony by a good gap in that race. It'll be fun to see these two battle it out until Colton moves on to the 6 yr. old class later this year. He has the momentum against Anthony (and others) right now, but Anthony will be trying to deliver an upset or two in the next several weeks!
Anthony did very well in his first state race. We didn't get the turnout we were expecting (around 15) as there were only nine entries in the 5 and under novice class. So there were two first round motos of five and four, of which the top two from each advanced directly to the main. The remaining five riders raced for the remaining four spots on the gate, i.e. only one rider didn't advance to the main.
Anthony should have finished second in his first moto, but didn't (let's just leave it at that). So he had to race moto two, which he won. He got another bad start in the main, but came out of turn 1 close to the leaders in fourth. He tried to take third with an outside pass in turn 2, but was unsuccessful. From there he seemed to just settle into fourth and cruise to the finish. Perhaps he didn't realize that he was fourth because he sure was upset that he didn't get a trophy! Oh, well; that's the way it goes sometimes, overall he did very well (but of course he didn't want to hear that).
He redeemed himself the following two Wednesday nights with commanding back to back wins (although with no real competition), which now bring his total wins up to four. And he now understands the concept of having to win 10 novice races to move up to intermediate, so watch out!
Gianluca loves racing too! He doesn't get it quite the way Anthony did, but he's definitely having fun, and is always looking forward to Wednesday nights. He finished second in last night's race, and was very content!
That's it for now....
Hanging with Donny
Anthony and Jacob
Anthony, Levi, and little Donovan. And of course the beautiful trophy girl!
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