Mason's Midsummer Meltdown, Top fuel bearing rebuild, crash

Racing the Marathon class at Wyandotte lake,  finished 11th out of 19

Prior to racing on Sunday I had to tear the topfuel way down to replace all eight of the suspension bearings.  I did a complete overhaul on the bike.  I started to think I wasn't going to get it done in time for race day.  This picture was the day before the race.  Yikes, I started to sweat a little, because I was having trouble getting the lower pivot back together; the inner sleeve that protects the bearings from being crushed was making it difficult to push the pivot bolt through.

Here is an exploded image of the bearing replacement I had made.  I do not recommend trying this the day before a race.  I had no choice because the bearings were trashed.

Here is the the trail head that I crashed on just 30 minutes before race time!  I felt like a tool!

Here is my ugly mug sporting my team colors.  It looks like I knocked my teeth out!  They are all there, lol.

So It's been a while since I have been around the race scene.  I just finished up grad school after two years and I am now a licensed school psychologist.  Whew, who would have ever known? 
         I have been getting some miles in this summer, but during grad school it was very difficult to train.  I have only been on my mountain bike three times since last September,  all three being races.  I was really rusty and I wrecked within 5 feet of hitting the trail!  LOL.  It was prior to the race so the only thing hurt was my ego, although my ribs are a little sore right now.  The picture of the rocks were my point of impact, I went right down the middle which is true to my fashion.  My rear brake pads were evidently contaminated which in turn were squawking really badly, I tried to use too much front brake to compensate for the awful noise and over I went.  This made me really timid on the first lap, but once I got going I was OK.  I made it over those rocks all four times during the race without incident.  Well, anyway I will be competing at a bunch more races from here on out,  hopefully I will be ready to get back to cat 1 racing soon.  Until then I will be training and prepping for my first full cross season.  See you all soon!