Good weekend!… Great time riding with friends and having a killer race!
This year was a good turn out! Lots of top ranking pros came out for the race so it was going to be competitive.
The track was in good condition all weekend with the exception of it being a little more rough from the previous year.
Friday practice was great.. Like usual first run on the track you think to yourself..” I’m going slow to get all my lines!” but in the end you know all your lines from previous years and they come back to you so quickly that you end up going way faster than you had planned.. luckily no crashes this weekend!.. almost though which counts I guess.. lets you know that either you aren’t comitting all the way or you are going fast enough.. most of the time I like to think of it that I’m not comitting all the way.
After DH practice there was the Giant Slalom which most racer kind of thought it would be lame… including me..! considering it wasn’t a slalom race.. it was racing on flat turns almost to see who can get the fastest time.. so a lot of racer were asking for their money back but of course they were not doing refunds!… Anyways I ended up racing it since I paid for it already and I think because of my mind set of “I don’t really care”.. I ended up killing the track.. which is kind of the mind you want to race on.. keeps you relaxed and focused.
I ended up qualifying in 4th behind Sam hill.. which was pretty good!.. My bike was hooking up!! My Duro tires that I put on was surprisingly the best tires I could have chosen for that track because I litteraly couldn’t get them to break loose! was insane and actually turned out to be a lot of fun!.
Saturday the DH qualies was underway. I was a little nervous because I knew the track was a little wet from some thunder showers and since the track was a little rough I had to just follow my lines and hope I stay on track.. I ended up 10th whch isn’t to bad since I had a pretty crap run.. I made some silly line mistakes and almost had crash out the first woods section with one foot off in the air almost sliding out!… so I knew I could do the top 10 which has always been a goal since I have placed top 10 every year since 2005…
The Giant Slalom went very well! I ended up 4th every run actually.. and missed edging Lopes out by 2/100th of a second!! I know where I could have made that up to… dangit!! But I still managed to edge out Eric Carter who beat me in last years National Slalom title in Vermont!.. so that was awesome to beat a guy I have looked up to since day one.!
Sunday it was game on! I felt pretty good in my practice runs. After practice I had a good nap… The heat can really take it out of you here..! I was out!.. we had some crazy thunderstrom though that closed the track down and the racing for about 45 minutes which kind of sucked really since I had tires that worked really well in the dry conditions but not so good in the wet rocky type riding.. so I made some last minute cuts to my tire that would hopefully help with traction in the rock sections… I think they helped a bit..?? My run went pretty well.. not a great run as my mind was to relaxed I think.. I made some line changing choices through some rock gardens that would be slower but less of a risk and I kept pretty consistent the whole way down.. So I ended up with a 7th which was good…! I wasn’t the top USA rider like I have done here every year but I got a top 10 which is keeping my top 10 streak going now!..
In the end we had a great after party at the Vernon inn with my buddies Jeff, Doug and Karl dressing up in their usual fashion and scaring out all the top international pros.. so funny!! We ended up riding the next day all hungover.. good times!
In the end I made $250 from the Slalom which I’m really glad I raced… it was a rush and a true FUN event..!
Cheers guys.. see you at the next one!
Posted by gerittb 