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.