Tag @motosportinc and use #BreakTheMold to show us how you, or someone you know, is unequivocally pursuing their passion to ride. We'll be highlighting your unique stories over the next couple months, giving away cool gifts along the way.
Before I started racing motorcycles I was completely enamored with the movie Dust to Glory. When it came out in theaters I watched it three times in one week! On the third night, the guy in the movie theater just let us in free. I was completely blown away by how these people racing the Baja 1,000 could go out and continue to push. It was really impressive to watch as a new rider.
A few years down the road I was invited to race on a 24-hour relay team with a group of women at Starvation Ridge. At the time I didn't know those types of races even existed locally. I had an incredible experience at that race and couldn't help but notice the people doing it solo. I was completely fixated on the Ironman class, I thought they were amazing. By chance, just a few weeks later, I met the guy who won the Ironman class. After talking with him I ended up telling him I wanted to not only race in the Ironman class, I wanted to podium. He looked at me seriously and asked about my plan. From that moment I knew he took me seriously, and it inspired me to believe in myself. That's how it got started.
The year after my first experience racing a 24-hour race event I actually did the 24-hours of Starvation Ridge solo. With races like that, you have this idea in your head that you think you know what the race is going to be like, but in reality, you have no clue what the experience is going to be like. I realized about six hours in that I had no idea what it would feel like mentally and physically. We had terrible weather that year, it rained for hours on end and by sunset we were racing in axle-deep mud. I hit a wall at two in the morning, I had pushed and pushed until I fell on my face. I was so wrecked that I had to stop and sleep for a few hours.
After getting some rest we went to check the leaderboard and found out, even with sleep, I was in 6th place. It took every ounce of my body and mental capacity to get back on the bike and finish the race. I went out barely functioning and struggled for 20 miles to the finish line. I ended up finishing in 6th place, just missing my podium goal by one spot. This race pushed me to reassess how I was preparing for these events. The goal for me is to go out there and try to win or podium, so that race was a defining moment.
24 Hours of Glen Helen in Southern California is where all the big teams go. At that race, you're lining up against people who race high caliber series. I always wanted to go down and see how I would stack up to see if I could make a statement. So I trained for a year and only told about five people about the race so there wouldn't be any pressure. While preparing for the race, I rode alone, I was in the gym all the time, and all my friends just thought I had disappeared. Despite all the preparation, when I got down to the race I was really nervous. I was scared, I was out of my element. Then the rain started and when I pulled up to the line I was ready to go.
Once the race started I began to pick away spots. Sometime in the middle of the night, I had worked my way up to 5th place. By three or four in the morning I had battled up to 2nd place and I was on a mission. I don't think I had been off the bike for longer than about five or six minutes the whole race. I was so gone I don't even remember most of the end of the race. It came down to a battle on the last lap. At the finish, I battled hard and came in 2nd place in the men's division.
Yeah, 24 hours is a long time and so much happens! There is no shortage of funny stories. One of the recent ones we are still laughing about is from 24-Hours of Glen Helen. I think it was about three in the morning and I was starting to get to that place where the willingness to go on was fading. So my pit crew, my husband Dave and a good friend Larry, told me to get off the bike because I needed a new rear tire. They explained that my rear tire was the reason I was struggling so much, so I got off the bike and got a snack while they put a new wheel on. They put me back on the bike and immediately I was like, yeah let's go!
I clicked off four laps faster than I had been racing all night. It was an incredibly invigorating experience. I didn't find out until after that I really didn't need a rear tire change, they just thought it would perk me up. They were totally lying to me and I had no idea but it worked! We laugh about my tires all the time now.
