The Cauley's: The Grands

On Saturday, the national race started. This is a separate race than what we raced on Friday. This is the final national race of the year. Again, Jacob raced in 2 separate classes...mixed/open and class (see previous post for description). This time we did not miss any moto's:) On Saturday, the first 2 moto's were raced. Unfortunately, he did not qualify that day. On Sunday morning, he raced the third moto in both classes and qualified to move on.

Just to give you a perspective on how long our days were, there were about 350 motos for ROC on Friday and about 450 motos for the grands. It takes close to an hour to do 150 motos as long as they are running more than one moto on the track. Each race takes about 45 seconds. It goes fast but we did have some periods of waiting 2+ hours. Not to mention the fact that our days started very early. Sunday was different in that the races went so fast that Jacob barely had time to eat. After the third moto, there were quarter finals, semi finals and then the mains. Jacob made it to the quarter finals in his mixed/open class...again, a huge accomplishment. He made it to the semi finals in his class race but missed making it into the main by one place.

To tell you that Jacob handled not making it into the main well, well, I would be lying. Shane called me (I was in the stands) and asked me to come see Jacob. He was hysterical with anger, then crying, then anger. He felt like he had been cheated. He hadn't. It's just that racing the best means lots of hard, heavy competition involving elbows, knees and strategy. It took him about 30 minutes to settle down before we could all just take a deep breath and forget racing and enjoy the mains.

On our team, 4 people made it to the mains. Our best winner was a mom who races the 40-45 class and brought in a 2nd and 3rd place finish. I believe our team came in 11th out of 30+ teams. I hadn't expected the grands to be so tiring, so exciting and that they would make me so nervous. I was a wreck waiting for Jacob to qualify. There was one day were I couldn't even eat for 7 hours. I just wanted him to do his best and to be proud of himself, whether he made it into the mains or not. I think, in the end, that is what happened. He had a lot of fun and is proud of himself. Now he knows what he needs to work on to improve for next year. Tulsa, here we come again!!!

During our down time, there were lots of things to keep the kids busy. Below are some pictures of Jacob riding a big wheel and playing Rock Band: