Scottsdale NCS Race Report/Thursday

I awoke at my mothers home in Riverside to the sound of chickens crowing at the rising sun. It's 5:30 am on Thursday morning, and I see already missed two phone calls. Taylor and I leave this morning for the race in Scottsdale, AZ. We are rollin' deep in rented Hyundai Entourage minivan that seems to come factory equipped with a Lamborghini V-12 powerplant. It was uber-fast for such a large machine, and with the traction control turned off, Taylor pushed the front wheel drive behemoth to the edge of reason.
As we neared the Mullett Mecca of Blythe, my phone was already dead from the constant barrage of rider and support crew calls. Rolling into Tempe at 4:30 pm, we checked in to our room and ran to Titus to meet with E.J. and Pat. I saw a sneak peek of the next generation of Racer-X frames on the CAD computer screen, talked to the man behind the Mitres in the tubing shop, and saw how the Bi-Fusion bonding process squeezed the carbon into the Ti for top-secret ride sweetness. VERY Trick, and a Titus exclusive. E.J. was nice enough to loan us two Racer-X bikes for Bert and Fuzzy to compete on, even offering his own Racer-X (named Jesus) for the Fuzziest if needed. We left for the hotel to meet up with Roger, Vanessa, and James and ate dinner.
A quick bite at P.F. Chang's and we were all asleep by 11pm. By the way, what the hell does the "P.F." stand for (Insert joke here)? Friday morning we all rendezvouzed at the race course for the team pre-ride of the XC loop. Ten miles of singletrack awaited, and we took off on a blistering pace that only a tree sloth could have kept up with. Our day ended at Titus, where the whole team was treated to a tour and beers with the crew. After that, we all headed to the local brewery (3 Peaks) for some suds. James Cross lied about his age to a teenage girl who then invited to the weekends races. Nice! We got hammered, went home, and fell asleep...or so one would think. At 11pm my old friend Meghan Wherely and her beau rolled in and snapped me up, taking me with them back to the brewery to slam two pitchers of Kilt Lifter before stumbling in at 1:30 am.

Ouch...