Feb. 21, 2010
Southridge USA Winter Series
Race #4
Fontana , CA

More great conditions out at Fontana for race #4 of the Southridge USA Winter Series. This week I was better prepared and finally pulled off a win in the Super D ending Team GT rider Eric Carter's win streak!

Super D

This time I showed up a few hours early to get some practice in on the course, which I was glad I did because once again the Super D was a handfull. The Super D's out at Fontana although a little short are what a Super D should be - mostly downhill, but enough uphill that you dont want to ride a full downhill bike. Really the ultimate bike choice for a proper Super D is my Santa Cruz Blur LTC with 5.5 inches of travel, but still light enough that its not a bother on the climbing sections which are generally pretty short.

On my race run I got off to a bit of a rocky start when I had to un-clip in the first turn which in itself was not a big deal but the problem came when I kept missing my pedal when I tried to clip back in. By the time I made it to the next turn I finaly get back in. Once clipped back in I quickly got down to business and hit the majority of the sections how I wanted. Still room for improvement, but luckily it was good enough to take the win.

Picking my way through one of the more rocky sections.

Downhill

Todays downhill was an interesting mix of fast turns and steep rock drops. Really the area known as the water fall is not my favorite area but for whatever reason the twisty technical aspects involved were really fun for me. This course truly benefitted the technical rider. To me the overall course seemed less padally than previous course. However even though there was a little less pedaling it still took a lot out of you. I was feeling the effects of my hard effort in teh Super D the day before and really had trouble pulling it together today. Not a course to feel weak on! I did keep a good pace through the rough stuff which I was very happy about, but I really fell apart on the power sprinting areas, especially the finish wall. On a good day I can sprint almost the whole thing, but today I had to stay in the saddle the majority of it. By the finish I was completly out of gas. Pretty sad considering the run only took a little over 2 minutes...ha! Hopefully I will feel more like myself next time. All in all I am satisfied with another 6th place finish, but I do feel like I still have a top 3 finish in me.

As they say...there is always next time.

-Joe Lawwill