Chalk Creek Stampede

Not a bad start to the season! DS podium (Jess Vogt, me, Joanna Petterson, Jacquie Harmony)

So, this past weekend was the first race of the Mountain States Cup series, and it was all gated racing!! Yea! :) We started off with 4x on Saturday and had DS on Sunday. We raced on the newly improved "Extra Crispy" 4x track. The track got bigger, and maybe a little better, not sure. The jump on the "pro line" at the bottom was the most fun jump I have ever hit, though, I know that for sure! Qualifying went well, I was just about a second behind Joanna, and then the next closest girl was over 3 seconds behind me, so I felt pretty good about that. I had a bye the first round and the next round went well to get to the finals. I was really excited to try to give Jo Jo a run for her money, but my chances were cut very short in the first "S" turn on the course. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but my rear wheel washed out big time and I went sliding down the course on my back after whipping my head into the ground pretty good. A bit of a bummer, but still a paycheck for the 4th place finish. Thanks Kieth!

My teammates Nate and Cody making sure they both advance out of this round!
This is the only picture that anyone got of me riding this weekend. :( I guess it's a good thing that you can't see the rest of the competition behind me! :)

My good buddies Jordan (1) and Justin (2) (I think they're both sandbagging Expert 19-29)

Early Sunday morning saw the start of a long, long day of dual slalom. There were at least 250 competitors so the event was going to take all day, no matter what! We only qualified on one course, and I had a good but fairly conservative qualifying run. I ended up just about 0.3 seconds behind Joanna, and again over a second ahead of the next girl. I was hoping for a Jo Jo/Neven showdown in the finals. After two rounds of remembering what the course felt like (we didn't race until about 7 hours after we qualified!!), Joanna and I raced in the finals. I had some shining moments in each of the runs, but she was flawless and rode really well. She definitely deserved two "W"s this weekend! It was a lot of fun. On the boys side of things, my good friend TJ KILLED it! He was riding so well all day. He qualified 4th in a huge men's field (~55, I think), and with some very stiff competition. At the end of the day he rode well in every round and ended up 3rd, just behind his teammate Ross Milan and just ahead of our friend Rudy Unrau (who also had a great day, qualifiying 2nd and riding well all day! Not bad for a 17 year old!!). The Yeti boys (2nd, 3rd, and 4th) somehow let a speedy Kiwi in the backdoor for the win. Cameron Cole was there this weekend and reminded us all why he was the Junior World Champ last year. The kids got some skills!

TJ's first Pro Podium, CONGRATS!!

TJ on his way to the podium in an earlier round against Matt Fisher

Cody looking good through one of the super tight slalom berms

Hands down the biggest sandbagger of the weekend! Yeti wrench Nate Espy killing the competition in the Sport 19-29 category and throwing in steez to add insult to injury!