Well we arrived in Loovulle this afternoon after a mostly uneventful 8hour ride.I know you have all been waiting to find out if the tootsie girls Kathy,now known as peanut, and Karen, aka the flea have passed the pit tootsie test. It was a tough race, lots of mud and prarie grass. Tom pitted every lap and even though he didn't have any mechanical issues we still had to clean and lube his bike in under 5 minutes. Everything went pretty well with the exception of the high pressure washer shredding the crap of of his bar tape, which he wasn't very happy about. The pit official also reprimanded me for pushing Tom in the pit area when he remounted which is illegal but everyone does. Believe me it isn't easy pushing a 200 lb man on a bike through 4 inches of mud the consistency of goose s$&t while wearing 10 lb winter boots. So, considering their short training program and their clear superiority over most of the other pit crews Tom has bestowed them as official Pit Tootsies. So this week Peanut and Flea get to pit tootsie 4 races which should help them become seasoned pros.
Tomorrow we unload all the bikes and start prepping them for Wednesday's preview of
the race course. Lots to do, replace Toms and Karens shredded bar tape, fix Karens shifter which got packed with mud when she crashed, find out why Kathy keeps getting chain suck and check my headset for a bad bearing. In addition to all this we will adjust brakes and clean braking surfaces, lube cables and just generally make sure everything is in good operating order. A tootsies job is never done. Kathy will update you all on course conditions and schedules. TTFN
