California State Series Final @ Big Bear

Dust, heat, elevation, the end of a era, the end of a series, I wanted to finish like Seinfeld, and Team Platinum, on top of the competition. But just showing up in my category is generally more than half the battle, so I was confident enough to go out for the 6 hr progressive neighborhood dinner party the night before after an 8 hr day at the office.

Morning came too early and Big Bear is a long ways away. At the start line it seemed like a smaller than normal group with all the familiar faces. Everyone seemed to start quite a bit faster than usual though, but the guy I was chasing from Woodruff Off-road had popped the last three races about 2/3 of the way into the race and finished more than a few minutes back. I wasn't to concerned making the initial 2+ mile climb when I couldn't see him anywhere near the top of the course.

I had gone with about three extra PSI front and back after flatting at
last years final. It didn't occur to me at registration that the section
that the extra pressure was added for had been trimmed out of this years
course. Floating so many soft fire road corners and having too slow coming
into them just to keep the line had me wishing I would have flirted with
the chance of flatting a bit more.

I finally made visual contact with Jason Woodruff on the single track leading up
to the "three bitches" fireroad where the Cat 1 riders rejoined the medium length Sport
course on the final three peaks to the top of the course.
Latching onto a few of the faster Cat 1 rider wheels and bridging up to
Jason was slowly and painfully getting me closer. The Luau themed Mai
Tais and Kahlua pork from the festivities the night before wasn't seeming like such a good idea at this point. But a half mile past the top of the course on the
downhill fire road into the single track descent is where I squeezed by. I
didn't look back at the top of the rolling single track and log ramp.
Several racers were bottle necked at a little make-able soft run up so we
all had to dismount, at this point Jason ran by me and two others in front
of me, and I had no answer, nothing left in the reserve tank. I kept
walking up the little rise. I couldn't get by the two between us until
the next fire road, and couldn't reel him back in down fall line to the
finish and ended up half a minute back.

A disappointing way to end the series but will look forward to the Fall Classic
to redeem myself and maybe will wait to make a pass until I know I can
hold the lead.

Photo by Roxanne Moore