2010 Dirt Crit #5 - More Fun Than Watching Monkeys Fling Their Poo

Greetings, you Team Seagal Tifosi. If you haven't made it out to the Alpine Shop/Lone Wolf Coffee Dirt Crits, then you've missed out tremendously. Not to rub it in, or anything. These have only gotten bigger each week. This week, it was so huge that police had to close all streets within Ballwin, Manchester and Winchester, including all boat traffic on the Meramec River. People had been camping out for several days prior, just to get a good parking spot near the festivities. I was one of the lucky ones, parking at the Chubb Trail parking lot and then caulking my wagon and floating it across the river.

Seriously the turnout was huge. Huge like the murals that were lovingly drawn on the walls of the late TC Man (RIP.) Several soldiers made the trip out there this week, including a Ryback, a Felino, a Lawman/TTM, and a Petrosevitch. Our esteemed teammates Jerkward and the Tropical Storm sallied forth from the city to see the race. We even saw some Dogfish sightings, some heavy CX crossover, and even a sneaky sighting by the Shop Gnome himself, Mr. Fellet on one of his own creations. He did quite well, despite still having the No-XX handicap. Somehow rigging his 970 XTR to limp along a little while longer, he proceeded to put his evil inside the souls of many that stood in his way, all probably riding that 960 series XTR bullshit. Sheesh.

Sasha was crushing it in retro Seagal Kit while riding her singlespeed hybrid, while Lawman was... racing... in his... uh, cheerleading outfit, specially tailored to him:


When asked why he decided to race in a cheerleader's outfit, he responded by licking his lips to keep from drooling, managing a one sentence answer: "Because it lets me feel like me. The real me."

The A Race lined up with a monstrous, chest-hair inducing sprint in front of us before the labyrinth of course tape slowed us down into a choo-choo train of... racers, all bent on making way in the fast lane on the road to victory. Some serious wrecks took some mahjor players out - especially on the first corner over the bridge. Gino seemed to make good headway in the bunch sprint, allowing him to be placed in the proper grouping:

Speaking of chest hair, specifically the kind that is visible through one's sweaty white clothing, I managed to stay relatively strong throughout the first four laps, at which point I started losing the ability to attack or hang with anyone else besides Mr. Cooper. It was around that time that my "loss control" mode kicked in. A couple of pulls off of my secret 2 liter helped ease the pain, though. I think that my circa 1992 Mesa skinsuit may have had something to do with it:

Our good buddy Peat was supremely kicking ass, and being quite proud to be the "Least-Pro" in the A class; unlike me, as I think was the only person pro enough to be in a skinsuit. Here is Peat, lining up as part of the burgeoning BMX-class:
No word on whether either of these fine ambassadors for our sport beat the man behind them, who won the prize for "Most Ridiclously Raked-Out Fork." (The prize is being mentioned on our blog.) A bit of post-race update on Peat - the post-race protocol in fact did find him to test positive for a huge beard, thus confirming what has been suspected for a long time, that he IS beard-doping.

Beards are long known to give the host immense power, i.e Commander Riker:
Chuck Norris:(yes that is a birthday cake with a shredded, shirtless Chuck Norris on it)

...or even Mason Storm:

Ralph, the Dirt Crit High Commander seems to truly enjoy announcing each person as they come by - seen here fist pounding Lawman:

Found within the C Race, a Tandem division was emerging as the crowd favorite:

Despite their mantra of "Every Ride is a Race," this is one race in which the DRJ contingent was not able to hang - definitely last place. Must have been due to their AARP meeting having gone late the night before - all the way till like 4pm. There were rumblings of a Pugsley showdown next time (yes, more than one Pugsley)... we shall see if that goes down.

An immensely fun time was had by all that partook and showed up. Justin was feeling a bit Randy with our Lawman:

And Scooter, fresh out of the High Lands of Breckenridge, where he rode 100 miles on his mountain bike, showed off his number plate and in doing so, has the cover photo for a 1970's rock album, if he were to ever put one out:
"We've got armadillos in our trousers. It's really quite frightening."

If you want to get in on the fun, you have one moar chance - this Sunday starting at 9AM. Consider it like Dirt Church. Following the races, there will be Food, Folks and Fun at Lone Wolf. But you'll have to show up. Just remember, there's no point in pulling out of every one of these races just because you aren't winning it. That doesn't make you a good racer. Just sayin'. They races are more fun than drinking 2+ year old beer that has been laying in a gutter (WARNING - graphicly hilarious vomiting):

If it doesn't play, then go here.

You're welcome.

-Casey F. Ryback