2008 Cal State round 2

Round two of the Cal-State series was held at Woodward West in Tehachapi Ca. This was the first time I had been
to woodward. The course was short with some tricky flat corners and a few jumps. The course seemed to fit my
style of riding which is real flowy. Saturday was fun. I got a whole day of practice in and felt confident on the
course. I wanted to get a good result after my crash at the Sea Otter Classic the week before, so I was working
pretty hard.This race was a two run/ combined time format. Which means you race two times and they combine
both times for the final total time and who ever has the fastest time wins. It’s tough_You have to bang out two
solid runs. No mistakes. My first run felt pretty good and ended up being the fastest time out of everyone. I only
beat Amado(2nd fastest time) by a second and I know he can beat me just like anyone else on any given day so
there was a little pressure for the second run. I wanted to pin it a little harder on my second run and hope I would
stay in the top five. I ended up only going a second faster in my 2nd run but it was good enough for 1st place! I
had the fastest time in both runs. I never would of expected it but it sure helped the confidence after my crash at
the Sea Otter Classic!

2008 Sea Otter Classic

Unlike all the previous years 2008 was blessed with great weather! No rain , no mud, but some 40 mph
Gust were present! The downhill course was the same layout but with dry conditions. The top section of
the course had a thirty foot jump in the rhythm section and the rest of the course had lots of pedaley
sections. It was a real fun course with a little speed trap section in the middle and a cool step down jump
to right turn to double jump to left turn! Hopefully you followed that trail talk_hehe
I had practice at 8am on Friday and two runs in I have some mechanical issues with my bike and have to forfeit
the rest of my practice time to fix my mechanical. I spent the rest of my day watching my friends practice
downhill and some dual slalom. I only raced downhill because I couldn’t get a fork for my dual slalom bike in
time and it was another sixty bucks or more to enter dual slalom. Saturday there was no practice for pros on
the downhill course. Sunday was the next time I would be back on the downhill course.
I felt good on Sunday morning. I took three or four practice runs before my race run and felt that I had the
course pretty dailed! When it came down to my race run it was a different story. In my race run I had a horrible
crash. I made it thru the top jump section and into a real fast left berm, but right after the berm before the
tabletop jump there were two rollers that took me out! All of a sudden my front wheel washes out from
underneath me and I slam on the right side of my body hitting my head and right side of my leg on the ground.
I got up fairly quick and bent my bars back . I then got back on the bike and continued my run with a bent lever.
It was rough, the whole way down I was pinned but thinking it was over! in our sport five, ten, fifteen seconds
are devastating. All in all it was a great event as always but a horrible race for me. That’s why I’m still racing thou.
Still searching for that perfect run. I ended up placed 64th.Which was second to last place. I look foward to next
year and some sort of redemption.

National Mountain Bike Series presented by Maxxis Round#1

The first round of the National Mountain Bike Series presented by Maxxis was held March 27th-30th
in Fontana, California. The weather was surprisingly good! Unlike last year_it was a scorcher! With a
little bit of cloud coverage we couldn’t complain. The downhill was internationally represented with
world cup riders from New Zealand, Australia, Spain and the UK joining the US racers making it quite
a competitive event. Donny from Southridge did a real good job with the course design. He added
more turns and challenging rock sections to compliment the “Wall”, a long, flat, vomit inducing
pedaling section! My practice runs were really fun! It took a while to find flow in the course due to
technical rocks sections. Everything was working out for me until sunday race day. I had an over the bar
crash in my first practice run which resulted in a bent derailleur and sprained wrist! I never found a
replacement derailleur so I had to bend it back as best I could! I ended up placing 14th out of 40 with some
shifting problems and just lack of fitness! I was seven seconds off the leader and most of that was shifting
so I feel a little better knowing I could of had a faster run with all my gears!

In My California Golden State Cup race I ended up Placing 4th out of 7 racers! Not to many people hung
out for that race considering it was the same day immediately following the National race! I was three
seconds slower on that run than my National race run which was already bad. That’s racing thou

It was a great wknd thou! It was really good to see everyone......

Big Thanks to Big Ring Cyclery, VitaminWater, EVS, THE, Dragon, 661/Royal/Sunline, Straitline