Race Report - Deer Valley Norba- I Won
This past weekend the traveling roadshow (or gongshow) called Norba made it's way to the Wasatch mountains of Utah, Park City to be exact. If you remember they held this other contest there called the 2002 winter olympics a while back. Park city is typical of many resort towns, cute little shops, lots of outdoorsy people and a lot of multi million dollar homes. There are also three ski hills in the valley and this weekend the Deer Valley resort would host the Norba national mountainbike series.
I arrived on thursday to register and hit the duel slolom course for practice. Yes I did say duel slolom and very old school style I might add. The course consisted of several berms reaching a height of perhaps twelve inches, a bunch of ski racing gates and a few rollers. No jumps to be seen or ridden unfortunatley. It was not my style of course and I think most of the racers had a good chuckle when they first saw it. The race was held on friday as many of the racers had to leave right after to attend the Jeep KOM race in California. Even though the course was weak it made for some great racing. Duel just has that effect, people get really into it as it seems more personal to battle against your opponent. The men's race featured some big names but most were either hurt or in Cali. Cody Warren of Haro went on to the win over John Kirkaldie of N.Z. In the womens I went against Tara Llanes, then Jill Kitner. Jill beat me in the semi's so I went against Katrina Miller from Austrailia and beat her for a third place. Jill went on for first with Mellisa Buhl second and me third.
Deer Valley used to be one of the highlights of the circut and many riders were very happy to be back as the last national race was in 2001. What Deer Valley lacks in height it makes up for in perfect terrain for a DH race. Rocks, cliffs and steep chutes not to mention some amazing trees that many were calling the jedi forrest. Riders had to use a bit of the "force" as they shot through a windy section of trees at 60 kms, not to worry as there was still a good couple of inches between the trees and your impending doom if you got distracted. Probably the most interesting feature was the "gully". If any of you ever raced snowboards at the Mt Baker banked slolom you might know what I'm refering to, a series of five switchbacks down a steep gully where riding up the wall was not only fun but fast. A cliff near the top called the waterfall calimed many riders as the entrance was sketchy at best. The mens race was stacked as many of the worlds top pros decided to warm up for the world cup at St. Anne by streching their legs in Utah. In the end favorite Greg Minnar was second to Yeti's Jared Graves, giving Jared his first Norba win.
In the women's (for me this is the good part) it was a matter of attrition as many of the best were crashing and getting hurt. Luna's Kathy Pruit hurt her hand but taped the crap out of it, then attached some velcrow and velcrowed her hand to the bars, she's nuttier than me. Japan's Mio Sumassa went down in practice, the waterfall claims yet another and so she decided not to race. Bernadita Pizzaro (Cannondale) qualified in first with me in second and April Lawyer (Intense/ Puma) third. I finnished with a time of 3:24 and had to wait for Berny to decend. Berny crossed the finnish line with a time of 3:29 and I had my first Norba DH victory.
I would like to thank all of my sponsors for making this happen, Santa Cruz Bikes, Denny's, Syncros, Sram, Rockshox, Truvativ, Avid, Lake, and especially the NSMB.com team.
