Race report by Joel Northrup Yes sireeeee! Team Wrong Way hits the podium again at the Downieville Classic! Congratulations and thanks to all those who could make it up there. It was a blast!! (Unofficial standings report - anyone know if they will be posted?) Yep, our girl that always has fun out there racing, Chris Morain, WON her class (beginner women's) at the Downieville Classic!!! Also having a great time, Chris' friend Keith, turned in an outstanding and well deserved 2nd place in the sport vet class!!! Yeah baby! And they didn't make it up until 1:30am race morning - WOW! As well, Karen Kinser, one or our Lake Sonoma team riders came in with a fantastic 2nd place right behind Chris. Wohooo! As for a really challenging Downhill, Scott Schlachter finished with an impressive 8th place!!! What a ride and he managed to piece a bike together the night before! Others from Team Wrong Way that made it up and down "safely" were Tom Kramer doing the Downhill with great mid-pack results, Efrin Cabreros (with Lisa to cheer him on) - ughh the cramps, Ken Xavier (work buddy, first time seeing the course, cramped but made an impressive come back) placing 15th and myself (also cramped out). The weather was great and trail conditions in good shape, if you don't mind rock gardens, and a little dust. The XC point to point race course on Saturday was 29 miles with an elevation gain of 3,950' and over 5,000' downhills. It started in Sierra City at 4000' with a mass start for each category up a paved road. A few miles up, it turned into a rough fire road with usually one line to follow. The Packer Saddle climb was a good grind up to the 7,000' level. We descended for 20 miles (few short uphills) along Paule Creek, the Third Divide and First Divide trails. There was definitely a mix on everything to challenge you all the way to Downieville. Rock fields, rock drops, roots, creek crossings, bridges, whoopdees, fast rollers and twisty/rocky ledges with "don't look over there" death cliffs over the river. With such a treacherous race course, I only heard of one person requiring four stitches (not on our team). The DH course was almost the same as the XC course without the grind up to Packer Saddle and included the Butcher Ranch trail. They still had to climb 500' on this course. Sounded like an awsome course to bomb down on with a long travel full suspension bike. Tom's Intense sure looked totally cool for this course - PLUSH! The fastest time was by our sponsor, WTB's Mark Weir with an outstanding 41min ~40 sec (approx). THAT's a smokin' unbelievably fast 25.4 MPH average!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The fastest ever time was 35 minutes (29.2 MPH), WOW! A little more practice and I think I could blow them away....on a paved downhill in San Francisco that is! Ughh. Definitely the most common problem was numerous people on the sides repairing flats and nursing cramps. Afterwards, they had awards ceremonies of our mates on the podium (I'll have pics to post on the website later), really loud music, food and drinks for the racers on Saturday and Sunday. Overall, I think everyone had a pretty good time. Downieville is such a nice town to kick back and relax in. Let me know if I left anything out. Remember, Team Wrong Way will be up there again with a huge group riding those awsome trails in Septmber 10 ~ 12. Check it out at http://www.teamwrongway.com/1999/schedule.htm. For relaxing, bring your fishing pole and gold pans. Joel Northrup ps. On Sunday, the raffle was a little disorganized, where the XC racers were told that they didn't need to be at the raffle Sunday to win, and needed to write their name and number so that they could be reached to send the prize. But to our surprise, the DHer's were a bit roudy and made the organizers put the prizes back up for raffle. I lost out on a Judy XC and Tom barely won (with much thankful help from Scott Schlachter who argued for it) another Judy XC. Soooo, any of you who bought tickets on Sat and expected to possibly win prizes, you may have won, but they were given away on Sun if you weren't there. You snooze, you loose :(