March 21-22, 2009
Fontana, CA
The 2009 Shimano Winter Series is in the record books and I can happily say I got two overall podiums. 1st overall in expert XC by winning 4 of the 6 events and placing second in the other two. In the Downhill I ended in 4th just one point away from 3rd.
In preperation for next weeks National I raced the Super D and took a solid second place in the pro men. I will make a couple changes for next weeks race and hopefully will be a threat to the big boys that the Nationals will bring.
Today I told myself I would put in only enough effort to stay in front rather than worrying about my time. I put in a solid first lap and found myself with a pretty sizeable lead. So I backed it down and tried to conserve as much as I could so I would have something for the Super D which is only an hour after the XC.
The Super D was awesome. I used my new Carbon Santa Cruz Blur XC which was the perfect bike for this. My only mistake was not changing to some bigger more downhill suitible tires. With only half a practice run I was pretty much just winging it. I finished a solid second only 3 seconds behind the guy that has won pretty much every Super D in the series. Next week for the National I am skipping the XC to put more focus on the Super D and the DH.
Sunday morning I woke up to heavy rain and a feeling of wondering if I am too old to go through this! Luckily I am still very stubborn and headed out to the track with the hopes that the rain would let up. My first practice run was in a total down pour. I got to the bottom and could tell the rain was letting up. I kept my rain suit on and went up the hill for one more run. Second run was noticeably better than the first and with the clouds clearing I knew we were going to have a perfect course. I peeled off my rain gear and headed up for my race run. Out of the start the course was great. Every turn had a sweet berm built up from the mud and the Fontana sand soaked up any leftover water. The only bum deal was there was a pretty strong head wind on the pedaling sections. So with my worked over legs from the XC and Super D I could only muster a half ass sprint to the finish. As I rolled through the finish I knew I had a solid run but knew that it wouldn't be enough to beat the always fast Eric Carter. As it turned out I was third and only .07 from getting second place!
Hopefully by skipping the XC next week I willl have that extra power to pull off solid results in both the Super D and Downhill.
-Joe Lawwill
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