The Count Down Has Commenced..

With the508 only a few days away, its time to talk race strategy. In the most recent email from Chris Kostman, (Chief Adventure Officer, Totemizer, and Race Director), it was announced that one of this years racers had created a google earth map of the race; I'd encourage all of you to take a look as its quite nifty. Anyway I digress, last night after getting my internet running, my crew chief and I went over the race, planning every thing, pee spots included. Obviously, most of our analysis is tartan specific but with the limited space that the blog will allow I thought I'd share a few of our findings with you all.

- Tighter Support = Victory Points

Yes, the 508 is a well, a tad long, but with 88 solo racers those who lead will succeed. With 88 solo entries support crew shoulder space will be limited. And with this it will be critical to maintain an early position in the fore front of the race? What you say? Well the answer is actually quite simple, 88 entries = 88 support crews, with the average mini van being 15.5 feet in length, then if every support crew were to park end to end the 508 support line would stretch a little over 1/4 a mile! Thus, races who lead will have tighter support then races who follow and closer support = victory points.

- Power the Climbs

We (Team Tartan) debated if we should share this "Tartan Secret", but then we decided, it was so obvious to pass over it would be ridiculous. When faced with a climb the correct tactic is to power up and over it. Why you ask? Well the logic is actually quite simple. If you assumed that the competition will ride the steep stuff at say 10 mph then if you ride up hill at 11 or 12 mph you would be riding 1 to 2 miles father per hour then the competition. While 1 to 2 miles per hour might now sound like a lot its worth calculating how much faster one must ride the flats or descending to gain the same relative distance. To put a equal time on a rider doing 20 on the flats one needs to do 24 mph, and for a rider descending at 40 mph one needs to do a whopping 48 mph. With air resistance going up by the cube of the speed it only becomes obvious he who climbs the fastest will win. But how hard should the rider go? Well, that is a personal variable for every racer but with descents of equal distance on average following most climbs, one can defiantly breath hard as following every climb is a decent and every decent offers time for recovery.

It’s Tartan Time!