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The day started out with a pretty tough choice...do I register Hunter as a 5 y/o Intermediate due to his win the day before (I thought he already had 7 wins but the ABA showed that he had 6 wins prior to Saturday's win...leaving him still one win short of being an Intermediate) or do I leave him as a 5 y/o novice?
The fact that I document all his racing via pictures and videos I was pretty certain I was correct so I moved him to the 5I's for the Redline Cup Qualifier race on Sunday. Unfortunately, when the motos came out there was only 1 other 5 y/o intermediate so he was in a class of 6I's despite having just turned 5 himself.
The first qualifier went pretty with Hunter finishing 3rd, the second and final qualifier he finished 2nd and thus made the main. After an unusually long and cold intermission without warm-ups the mains were called. The main started out as a worst case scenario for Hunter. As soon as the gate dropped the other 3 riders left the gate but Hunter did not.
This was not the way he had come out of the gate the past 2 days so I wondered what he had done. Upon review of the video we discovered that when Hunter mashed the pedal on the gate his foot slipped right off the pedal. He looked like he was trying to kick-start a Harley or something.
Despite this major problem Hunter did us proud by riding as if he were still in the lead as he chased the front 3 riders all the way to the finish. He never gave up, he never sat down to "ride it out", but he kept on driving and was awarded a 4th place finish and the trophy he had been waiting for all day! It was pretty exciting for his first ever Redline Cup Qualifier!!
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