Race Report: GNCC Series Rnd 11 Unadilla NY
Rider: Paul Whibley
Team: FMF Suzuki
Bike: Suzuki RMZ 450
Result: 9th
 
Gutted, disappointed, and plenty of other stronger emotions and words that probably aren't fit to print are the feelings I have after the Unadilla GNCC.

I got a wicked jump out of the gate and was right at the front rounding turn one but went down in the wet slick conditions.  I picked my bike up quickly but was near the back of the pro field.  Passing was difficult with the wet ground and slippery rocky base, and the amount of roost coming up was destroying goggles.  I would close in on someone and just get filled in.  Lucky for me, Fritz the Smith rep, had hooked me up with plenty of roll offs.  By the end of lap one I think I was in the top five.

We soon encountered lappers and plenty more roost.  It was terrible passing lappers as the seemed to be going a lot slower than the pros and struggling in the conditions.  It was difficult and very frustrating trying to get past.  It's not their fault, they are there to race as well but there is such a speed difference that at times it can be so frustrating.

 The pit stop was a slick afair with Katherine and Monty getting me in and out in record time.

Through the course of race I worked my way up picking off one muddy rider at a time. I got into a race with Kanney as I kept crashing after I would put a pass on him. By the last lap I had worked my way up to second place.  I had pulled about two minutes over Kanney who was now third.  With about two miles to go the bike stopped and it wouldn't restart.  I kicked and kicked. I tried to bump start it but nothing happened.  Then I thought maybe it had run out of gas.  I couldn't see into the tank as everything was so muddy.  I ran back to the pits and grabbed some gas.  Chris (Josh's mechanic) followed me back to the bike to maybe try to diagnose the problem. We put some gas in the bike and it still wouldn't start so that wasn't the problem. We checked over the bike the best we could but it was difficult to see if anything was out of place with the amount of mud coating the bike. We are still at a loss as to what went wrong.  The bike had been running awesome all race. The team will be working hard this week to identify the problem and do there best to prevent it from happening again.
But for me the race was done.
Gutted.