We had a treat this season- a nationals you could drive to, as long as you didn't mind the 800+ mile marathon. Our first stop was the family home of Aaron Bradford. Aaron and his dad made sure that we were comfortable and well fed on the first night in Tacoma.
The next morning we were down at the course. While most of us would just be checking out the course on foot and doing a few pre-race laps there were some who opted to race in the 'non-championship' events on Tuesday. Although risky, the races were a good way to check out the course conditions on
that day. The conditions would be changing quite a bit from day to day. Tuesday's relatively dry and tacky course would give way to Wednesday's rain and the softening of the muddy stretches in the area surrounding the pit.
Sarah Jordan, Kristy Vahlberg, Kathleen Bortolussi and John Vahlberg did the non-championship races on Tuesday. There would be more later in the week.
It would not be until the next day that official championship racing would begin for the team. The cloudy skies and nearly constant rain of the following days coupled with low temperatures would make conditions for a classic edition of the cyclocross nationals.
The Lakewood, Wa. Stielacoom park course has been used on many occasions for CX racing and its most notable features are the steep and choppy run-ups, probably some of the toughest in USA cyclocross. These long runs would prove to be testing to every person on a bike the whole week.
No comments:
Post a Comment