Cal State Round 3_ June 1st, 2008

The 3rd round of the Cal State series brought us back to Good old Fontana, California. A little different from
Angelfire, New Mexico and by that I mean temperature and terrain (no Lift access). Considering I’ve spent lot of time
racing the Fontana courses it was all good! I was surprised to see they decided not to run the traditional Calf State course!
They taped a course down the other side of the mountain. There was a little bit of the National course in it which was fun!
It was actually a fun flowy course. Practice on Saturday was fun, I only banged out five practice runs since the course
was pretty straight forward and it was hot! No need to over exert myself even thou I had Plenty of VitaminWater to
keep me hydrated! I saw alot of people hiking and just thought it wasn’t the best thing to do considering it was a
two run format on Sunday!

When Sunday came around the course was a little beat up from practice but not to bad.
I’d say it was standard Fontana conditions for this time of year! Dry, slick and dusty! They seeded me to start early on
Sunday which was nice. I took off out of the gate nine minutes after they started and had a real clean run for my first run.
I hung out at the bottom to see my time and check the rest of the field and I was sitting in first after we all took our first
runs! I felt I could push it a little bit harder on my second run but didn't want to push it to hard and throw it all away.
I had a two second buffer on second place but it’s anyone’s race so you cant think you have it! You have to give it your
all to the end! On my second run I wanted to chop down a couple seconds on my time which would guarantee me
1st place.

I had a little dab up top and got bumped off line in the bottom section right before the finish but still
manage to pull a decent time! only 1.85 seconds off my first run and with my combined time I placed first! That’s my
second 1st place finish in the Cal-State Series this year so I’m pretty sure I locked down the Championship! I have one
more race in that series in Sept and I will get the Cal-State Championship jersey for 2008!

MSC #3 Angelfire, New Mexico Memorial Day Weekend 2008

Angelfire, New Mexico was a great experience! It took us 14 hours to get out there on Thursday.
It was a long day of driving. When we crossed the New Mexico border It was snowing and we new
we where in for a good time! We pulled in to the Angelfire Resort sometime between 10 and 11pm
and I just hit the sack knowing I had practice at 8am the following morning. Practice was gnarly.
The top half of the mountain was covered with snow and ice. On my 4th run down I had a nasty
crash in the upper section. Pretty much lost my front end on some roots covered with ice and
landed sideways on my leg. It took me a few minutes to get of the course and took the rest of the
day off to care for my injury. Saturdays pros practice was at 8am again and I honestly didn't think I
would be able to ride the rest of the weekend but somehow pulled myself out of bed and geared up!
I took it a little easier that morning knowing the conditions were pretty hectic! My leg and knee felt
better the more I kept moving it so I continued to ride the mountain and ride open practice in the afternoon.
Sunday came around and pro practice was around 12 so I finally got some time to sleep. The storm blew
out and it was clear blue skies and about 70 degrees. Pretty much perfect conditions even thou the top
was still a little wet. The course was starting to dry out and get faster and actually safer! Race day was on
monday (Memorial Day) and the course was in great condition. I took off out of the starting box and
everything was good until this off camber root section were I lost control and flipped over my bars. I got
up fairly quick and jumped back on my bike in a section were you really needed momentum. It didn’t
take long to get back up to speed but still lost the race with that crash! About half way down the 5-6 minute
Course I end up catching the rider in front of me! The bottom half of the course is high speed and didn’t
get the chance to pass the rider. I proceeded to get stuck behind this guy all the way to the finish line. Which
had to of cost me anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds on my time! I ended up placing 22nd out of 60 which I
thought wasn’t to bad considering I had a off the bike crash and was held up for half the course!