Angel Fire Racing

My new FABULOUS 303!!

So, we headed down to Angel Fire, NM last "weekend" (we were there for 5 days, so not really a weekend) for 2nd race of the MSC which was also a NMBS gravity National. It was raining like crazy when we got there which made getting our pits set up quite a challenge in the super mud and rain. Once we got our pits/condo/restaurant set up, though, it was pretty good. We cooked up a little steak for dinner and then went to bed. We woke up for 8:00 practice on Thursday morning, and it was pretty darn COLD! I was pretty slow to get moving, but it turned out to be okay since the track just kept drying out the longer I was lazy. :) DH practice on Thursday was pretty good for everyone, but I was really holding out for 4x practice which didn't start until Friday.

Hmmm, needing some better cornering skills. At least I'm looking through the turn!

Well, it was supposed to be on Friday at 3:00 after DH practice, but Mother Nature decided against that. As soon as we were all heading up for practice a huge storm rolled in and delivered a lot of rain, some hail, and too much moisture for us to even dream of practicing 4x on Friday! :( The promoters rearranged the schedule so we could have some practice on Saturday morning at 8:00, but the track didn't really dry up enough to ride too much till about 9:00. I had wanted to hit more jumps on the track than I ended up hitting, but I needed a little more practice than we got to work up to them, as it turns out. I ended up qualifying 0.06 seconds off of Lisa for 4th. I was pretty pleased with that considering that I made several pretty large mistakes in my qualy run.

I was pretty please with my qualifying placing.
Unfortunately the racing didn't pan out so well. :(

I was pretty pumped for racing, that was for sure! Unfortunately, my riding didn't show up for my racing. :( I got a good gate in the semi finals but then rode the corners like I've never ridden a corner before and Jacquie ended up passing me in one of the corners. I rode very patiently behind her knowing I could pass her in one section that I was jumping and she wasn't. Sure enough, she rolled a double that I jumped, and I thought I was going to pull off a fabulous pass, in the air. Unfortunately, there was a damn turn after the jump, and I've already mentioned that I clearly don't know how to do those, so I ended up crashing and not making it to the finals. :( In the small final for 5th-8th, I was pretty far ahead and had to navigate one of those darn corners again, and well...the rest is history. I crashed for no good reason and let all of the rest of the field go riding by. Needless to say, I was really disappointed with placing 8th after qualifying 4th, and pretty frustrated with my riding and poor cornering. :( Melissa Buhl ended up winning with Lisa Myklak, Jo Jo, and Jacquie Harmony rounding out the final 4.

Just about to make a sweet pass...

And then waste it all by crashing in the next corner. Dumb, dumb, dumb!!!

On to DH. Well, my energy tank was pretty well spent after MX and I couldn't get excited at all about DH. We had some more practice on Sunday and then raced on Monday. My qualifyer was pretty slow with some issues in the upper rocky/wooded section of the course, but I was just happy not to have crashed considering how little energy I had to hang on for such a long DH course. It's got a lot of rocks, several very high speed sections, and many tight turns in the woods to navigate.

First technical section on the track

Through this section, I never really felt like I was going where I wanted to go, unlike TJ, who rides this section like there aren't any dumb rocks in it at all!

I took 15 seconds off of my qualifying run and moved up 2 spots to end up 11th. I would have liked to have gotten a top 10, but all in all 11th was pretty good considering my bad attitude and tiredness. :) Melissa Buhl ended up taking the W with Lisa, Abby Hippley, and Jo Jo in hot pursuit. On the boys side of things, my friends Cole and TJ had awesome days with Cole making the podium in 4th and TJ getting a top 15 at a National (14th!). They both had awesome qualifiers to set them up with confidence for the actual race!! Also, my friend Phil pulled out a top 25 in his first Pro race at a National! I think he was pretty psyched, especially considering that his finger is probably broken! All in all, the weekend was pretty good. All of my teammates made it out without a major injury, which a lot of people weren't able to say. As much as I love Angel Fire, I'm glad the weekend is over! Good job to everyone that rode well on the huge, demanding courses!

Back to reality...Tons of work to do at school. :)