Yo, Vinny Diesel. You think you know about drag racing? YOU KNOW SQUAT.
REAL drag racing. Photo by Victor Amandor.
So, mucho thanks to Melinda and Jimmy for getting together the first of hopefully many Drag Races. Lots and lots of fun. Pretty good crowd, different kind of scene than I usually see - maybe kinda art schooly/LBGT-ish than bike-ish. It's always fun when you see people riding bikes and you're like, hey...I don't know you!
Jimmy an' Melinda, organizers supreme. Photo shamefully cropped and stolen from Clint Kobeska. Of course, the odds that he'll see this are miniscule, right? I mean, we don't live in a microcosmic city where everyone ends up knowing everyone within a specific niche...say, bike-riders. But I digress...
When I first heard about this, Cort had suggested sprints instead of an alleycat and I was a little apprehensive, but it was actually pretty fun. Of course, I only got to do three actual races, but there were plenty of for-fun races too.
Linin' up, complete with
I managed to win against Victor and Giles, but ultimately fell to Gill. No question about it, he was fast, and he got the jump on me every time. About halfway down the strip I could start to close the gap, but I just didn't have enough room to really have much chance, finishing a whole bike length behind him. I had the same problem with Cort in the warm-ups. Thinking I'll bring a wheel ready to flip-flop next time - maybe running 46x17 instead of 46x16 would have put me over the top, but then again, I might have maxed out too quickly anyway.
Giles, looking dainty as fuck, and myself. I was having the hardest time just letting Cort hold me up and kept struggling to trackstand against him. Also, Gill hungrily waiting his chance to eat me alive. Photo again nabbed from Clint.
I'm not sure what place that would have put me in, and looking over the brackets didn't really help me figure it out, since I don't see the race with me and Giles on it, but yeah, who cares, it was really fun. Kinda wanna do like a weekly sprint thing, or monthly or something. Or actually, more accurately, I'd want someone ELSE to set it up, like the Flat Track Attack that Cort did a few years ago but I missed out on because I didn't really know the crowd very well at that point.
Brackets, stolen from Cort's instagram.
I'll leave you with a few more photos, one of Charles being Charles and another of Jason being fabulous. You can check out Jeff's photos on my flickr, as well as the aforementioned Clint's set, and finally Victor's set as well.
Charles' legs look...weird. So did his dinner, when it came up later that night. Jeff Gardner's photo.
Don't you tell me to smile/ You stick around I'll make it worth your while/ Got numbers beyond what you can dial/ Maybe it's because I'm so versatile
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