winter park = rain!

After a relaxing break at home for a month to catch up with my Fiancee Katie and see the family I flew back into the US to head to the forth round of the Pro GRT series being held at Winter Park, Colorado as part of the Crankworx Colorado event. Having never raced there before I wasn't too sure what to expect of the race, all I had heard was that it was really long and physical so I was hoping my fitness hadn't faded too much after being sick for two weeks before the race.

With a nice short drive of twenty hours from Southern California we turned up on Wednesday afternoon and found the place we were staying and got settled in. After a sleep in Thursday morning we headed up to the event to check out the track and get some early practice runs in. After the first run down it was mixed feelings with my team mate brad and myself both wondering how we were going to survive racing a run that felt like it took nearly ten minutes to get down but was so much fun at the same time. With rain looming on the horizon we decided to try get in another run for the day but just as we got to the top of the hill it started dumping down on us and we had the wildest run in a torrential down pour.

Luckily the rain held off over Friday and Saturdays practice sessions which made for a really fast track with all the roots and mud holes drying out.

Sundays forecast wasn't looking quite so good, although the whole week had shown thunderstorms sunday had the highest chance of rain but after a dry practice it was looking like we might make it through the day before it rained. Pro qualifying went on straight after practice so I was first down the hill at 10.30am eventually ending up 8^th with a resonably conservative run trying to save energy for the finals.

Once qualifying was done the amature classes started racing on a nice dry track until about half way through the skys opened up once again with heavy rain and thunder and lightening causing the chairlift to stop and hold things up for a while. With the Pro race runs scheduled to start at 3.30pm we were clinging to hope that the rain might pass over by then but it kept on coming down steadily all afternoon with random clear patches followed by more heavy run.

Unfortunately I was one of the people that got some of the worst rain from what ive heard but I had got prepared back in the pits with tear offs and an extension on my helmet visor in an attempt to keep as much water out of my vision as possible which ended up paying off for me coming down into 3^rd place with a resonably clean run minus one near massive crash blowing both feet off the pedals but just managing to hold on to get going again.

In the ended my run held on to get me 4^th place on the day so in the conditions im really stoked with how the whole weekend went and it was great to get another podium in the Pro GRT and hopefully get myself up in to the top 5 overall with the points from this race.

Next on the event list is Crankworx in Whistler, Canada starting on the 6^th and running through until the 15^th so im pretty excited to get back up there and get lots of riding and training in before the next world cup downhill round being held at Windham, New York where I actually won a US National round in 2008 so im really looking forward to heading back there.

I also just found out that I have made the New Zealand World Championships downhill team again for the 6^th year in a row which will be awesome to be able to put the New Zealand jersey on once again in Mt Saint Anne, Canada on September 5^th.

Once again I cant thank team DRD/Tomac enough for all the support this season and thanks to all the team sponsors keeping our bikes running!