My first Mountain bike race!! (or race period)

I participated in my first ever bike race on Sunday in Cape. Brad, Jay, Mary, and myself all packed in Brads car with are bikes hanging on it everywhere and made the two hour journey south. I was about as nervous as one person could get, but with the help of all three of my teammates they calmed my nerves. Jay and I took a practice lap around the moderately easy 3 mile loop. It was defiantly my kinda mountain bike trail. There were very few "technical" parts and mostly nice wide dirt trails. I don't think that I could have choose a better place to start my career in mountain biking. I signed up as a beginner in the 20-29 year old class, and wouldn't you know that there was only three of us. I was a little bummed about that because I was hoping for a wide variety of riders. The race started pretty good. I got off into the woods in second place after I passed are WHOLE Field of 1 other biker and was on the first guys tail until we reached about a 1/2 mile in where there was a somewhat of a hill. My opponent stood up on his bike to take off, and went nowhere, so I stayed seated and pushed my way right past him to top the hill with him being 100 yards back or so, and never saw him again. I feel like I could have pushed myself harder throughout the race if there was someone hot on my trail, but it seemed to be very spread out and I wasn't threatned throughout the race . I placed first in my only race so far and am pretty excited about participating in a road bike race. I feel that I am a little stronger in that style bike and I hope that I can get enough nerve up to try one this year. Wish me luck. Congrats to Jay on a second place, Brad on a seventh place out of 12 riders and Mary on her third place. It was a great showing for Schlafly cycling team at the 2009 Race #10 Cyclewerx Crankfest in Cape Girardeau.