Sunday, November 30, 2014

Surf City final Watsonville fairgrounds

 The rain finally arrived the day after Thanksgiving and the long awaited mud came with it. The Watsonville fairgrounds has been the site of epic CX racing for the last 15-odd years and today was one of the best. Kelly Chang rode tough in the series to score third place overall.
Michelle Perez did what she does most seasons-dominate the womens 45 plus group. She won the series.
With consistent strong finishes in the three race series Benoit Dubuisson and Craig Ball got 5th and 4th overall in the series.
 The racing all day started fast but within a lap folks found out that the slippery deep mud would slow their progress and the races wound up being extremely difficult, especially the running sections.
Even without good finishes Rick Ortenblad and myself wound up 4th and 5th overall for the series. In my case, it really pays to show up.
Max Judelson showed that he is a contender in every race and rode to a 5th place in the mens A event. 
Scott Chapin was near the front for the duration of his race finishing in 3rd on the day.

 Ariel Raymon got a 5th on the day in the womens B race showing that as the season progresses, she gets faster.
The bikes and riders needed a thorough cleaning after the race-mus was everywhere. Pit duties were ably handled by Ellen Sherrill and Eric Brown. We kept the racers on fresh bikes as much as possible.
 A visitor from down south Eric Nelson don's last years kit for the single speed race and gets 2nd. Kailin Waterman would crack the top 10 and finish 9th in the mens A race with Brendan Lehman coming in top-20.In the mens B race Javier Valencia overcame traffic and crashes to finish 12th. Nearly everyone from the team who raced today got on the podium........winning !

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