Race Report June 2007

Plattekill DH Series – Race #2

One month the course is fast and flowy. The next it is technical and tricky. The course was a combination of trails from past old school races making it a instant Plattekill classic. Practice was mostly dry with some slick spots and come race day it looked like we were good to go without any problems. The pro class went off in dry conditions and then it was time to start the expert class. The winds picked up, the sky grew dark, some rumbles were heard and then it started to pour. With no shelter and no way down all you could do was laugh as you waited for your race run. So much for the dry set of gloves I brought up with me. It was raining so hard that the timing shorted 3 times and we were stuck on top of the mountain for an hour. The timing was fixed and now it was time to race. I leave the gate and enter the first section of woods and the trail is under water, it was crazy. I just followed the water and held back some since I couldn't see anything it was raining so hard. Amazingly I came through the finish with a clean run and landed seventh place. I was happy to be able to deal with all the weather and still throw down a clean run to keep in the top five for the series.



New Jersey State Championship XC Race

Well my DH bike is currently in pieces since my new Turner DHR showed up so I thought I would do something a little different. I went to the NJ State Championship XC race at Kittatiny. The course was fast and dry but not too technical. It was more of a wide open road race in the dirt and I was going to have to work to keep up with the seasoned XC racers. My class had 64 racers and when we hit the first section of singletrack it was a pile up. This continued for the first loop and I tried like hell to get out front but dropped my chain and had to fight to pick off more people. Lap 2 hurt real bad since I exploded on the first lap. The third lap felt better and people started to drop off since we all went out so hard on the first lap and a lot of people started to get flats. Not me though since I was running my 2.1 Kenda Nevegals like I was at a DH race. Towards the end of the 3rd loop I had to stop for a while while they cleared an injured rider with a quad and then I finally came through the finish line. I ended up 23rd out of 64. Not too bad for something I normally don't do but I definitely like 3 minute races better.



Diablo Domination Series – Race #2

New bike weekend! My new Turner DHR showed up and we frantically put it together friday night. It wasn't perfect yet but it was good enough to race and test out everything. Diablo also put together an amazing course which included the infamous Utah trail (rock upon rock and then more rock). Once out of Utah you headed into a nice set of berms and a step-up. After this you headed into a wide open grassy run and then to the Redbull booter from the US Open. This course had a little bit of everything and turned out to be very fast with times in the 2 minute range. I was messing around with bike all weekend and trying different springs and was feeling confident on the bike already. I was feeling fast and comfortable and was able to land 25th. A lot better than my last result at Diablo race 1. I'm looking forward to the rest of the season now once I work out everything with the new race rig. Thanks, Turner for getting the bike out to me as quick as possible.



That’s it for June. Check the photos section for photos from the US Open and my new Turner DHR. July report to follow the end of the month including the National Championship at Mount Snow.

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