State CX Championships

Sunday was State CX Champs at SIR! DJ came through with a wicked-good course that never really seemed to let up. Good mixtures of off-camber grass and dirt, hard turns on and off gravel, 2 run-ups, infield barriers for spectating, off-camber mud downhill and a bumpy section running behind the start/finish line left everyone tuckered out. A work party Saturday night did most of the work, so Sunday morning we only had "the pit" to clean and a few sections to tape (Rory panicked a bit at 8:30 when the whole grass straightaway wasn't done yet, but Joe Bar pulled through!). A crack team of registrars kept the lines short as people rolled in.
In the first race Jason took 2nd for a pretty bit of bling bling (I think you should get it cut into pieces and get it mounted on your teeth like grillz) and Beth took an awesome 4th. Karen looked like she was riding hard and enjoying the course too!

Andrew was our man in green for the 10am race and put that mtn bike to good use. In the mud where everyone else was sketching, he just swooped through. The 11am race went off super fast compared to the first two. J and Matt were both near the front as the pack moved through the s/f and both held on strong for the rest of the race (J 8th, Matt 20th).

For 1p, Dan and Thad rep'd the singlespeed and Dan claims that chipotle beef sticks are the new gu, but I'm going to have to stick to my cliff bars... Greg and I both had front row seats to the start and when the whistle blew, it was on. I was sandwiched between two rad racing kids, but thankfully they pulled pretty hard and I sat in 4th wheel as we made the first turn, then dropped to 6th past the s/f, Greg was only a few bikes behind. In the first lap there were something like 3 or 4 crashes, so I was super happy to be up near the front. Greg passed me at the end of the first lap with a nice butt pat and an Ethridge-esque "nice race", but I got him again just after the steep rideup since he flatted and went for a 3k jog. Sucks because he was chilling in 4th place and probably would have held on... anywho, i got 12th and greg recovered to 18th/26. Not sure how the s/s fared, but Thad was laying on the ground and coughing after the race and dan went to first aid with a 3" laceration across his shin (Dan 7th, Thad 8th). Looked like good cx to me!

Big up to Wilbur, the team cheerleader who stuck around all day to keep everyone psyched as well as all the Joe Bar people who came to help and weren't racing. Also thanks to DJ for a rad course and getting the Joe Bar name out there.


-jeremy