AFM Round 6 – the Short Version

…We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

From “Our Deepest Fear,” By Marianne Williamson

I love racing for myself. I’m very competitive and I want to beat you. But equal to that in importance to me is knowing that my presence out there racing will inspire other women to conquer their fears and come join us. Racing has been incredibly empowering for me, and I know it can be for other girls out there too. Plus it’s just a whole lot of freaking fun. Even the disasters, even when my pit mate doesn’t think I can do anything right, even when Zoe beats me.

Saturday was another huge turnout for Formula AFemme. In addition to the usual AFM suspects, we also had joining us Krystyna Kubran, Nadine Lajoie and Marisol Lacour from WERA, and Jenny Besaw from WMRRA up in Seattle. Unfortunately we were missing Shandra Crawford, Cassie Gaddy, Tracy Bowen, Deb Barton, Shelina Moreda and Stacy Menas, but we still had twelve chicks out there battling each other, themselves, and the poor hapless lappers from Clubman Lightweight caught in the fray.

To express my enthusiasm for the big turnout, I organized a group photo in the winner’s circle and brought my favorite budget bottle of bubbly for each girl who raced. We popped them and it took us all a few minutes to figure out how to make them spray, I guess because none of us have been on a podium before, and most of us have probably had our men do the honors whilst celebrating whatever special occasion.

It was kind of cheesy. But so am I.

I got second in this round’s AFemme race. I was ahead of Joy for about a half a lap, going underneath her in turn 7. Then I almost murdered a lapper in Turn 3a; I know that Joy is learning her lessons and not letting lappers affect our results with each other, so I had to act quickly and decisively with the novices or I knew she’d be all over my ass like stripper glitter.

Cresting turn 2, I saw a small little mass of green and black puttering towards the dip before 3a, about four-fifths track, so I gunned it for his inside and lined up to give him about four bike widths of space for good measure. As I got closer and closer, his line for the apex tightened up really sharply, and I decided I had to abort my mission, coming within inches of torpedoing into whatever tiny, irrelevant bike he was riding. I felt selfish. And stupid. But I had to press on.

I didn’t really shake my new found low self-esteem and ended up blowing turn 7, letting Miss Higa back underneath me. She then proceeded to win by a few bike lengths. Dammit. But go Joy! Good riding! And congratulations to Jennifer Lauritzen for a new personal best lap time this weekend!

This weekend would not have been as fun or peaceful as it was without the help of three very important people: Eugene Camgros, usually James Randolph’s mechanic but was able to help me since Randolph was out with an injured shoulder, Nikki Nienow, my pretty blonde mechanic, and Krystyna Kubran, who raced her R1 in our Formula AFemme race but who helped give me moral support on Sunday. It was an emotionally trying weekend and your support meant the world to me. Thank you and I love you all!