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Race Report by Scott Schlachter
Northstar DH 10/8 Race report for the Northstar DH race (High Sierra Racing) yesterday: Excellent weather both days at Northstar. My DH buds Rich Davis and Dave (can't remember his last name) and I spent Saturday riding all over Northstar (YEA!). Another fairly low turn out on Sunday, perhaps 40-45 racers. ~4 women total. I don't think there were any Beginner men 25-34, which was odd. Several Pros, many Experts, many Sports (8 in my age group 25-34). I improved my time from last week by about 13 seconds (5:15), scoring 2nd place (scored some Cytomax and a slightly-used XC tire...). They screwed the timing system up this time, and everyone only did one run instead of two, except for about 10 people who had to re-do their runs. I definitely learned a lot by asking questions and observing - what to do and not do, to run a smooth DH race. Kudos to High Sierra Racing for: 1) Above all, designing some excellent courses and getting Northstar to let them hold it there - very difficult course for the Expert/Pros, semi-challenging course for the Sports/Beginners, fun for both. They had a Pro racer and an Expert racer designing the courses. 2) CHEAP race entry plus decent shwag. Since they were able to purchase discounted lift tickets in advance, my entry plus 2 days of lift tickets was only $9 more than 2 days of lift ticket would have been normally. They'll probably (hopefully) be more organized next year. Hope to do Donner this weekend - who else is planning on going? -Scott Schlachter
Race Report by Scott Schlachter
Northstar DH 9/24 Jon Heim, Anthony Thaulad and I participated in a race yesterday at Northstar Ski resort. Total of only about 40 racers. They were going to have 5"-or-less-travel-classes, but since there weren't enough participants, they rolled them into the normal catagories - for the Sport/Beginner course this wasn't big since there really wasn't much big hit stuff. The guy who was the main promoter had built a lot of the expert trails up there: the HSR trail, for example, was named after his company: "High Sierra Racing" (finally, mystery solved). He and his guys built a couple of new extensions just for this race, in fact. Pros and Experts did the top half of HSR, and then a new bottom section. Sports and Beginners did the top of Karpiel, and then a new bottom section. The race was two runs, total combined time. Anthony had signed up for Sport 25-34 (my cat), but they accidentally had him listed under Beg 25-34, where he got a second place. Jon got a 3rd in what turned out to be a very tough class (Sport 35-45) - his combined time was 10 seconds faster than mine, and I had the fastest time for my catagory. Jon got edged out of second by something like 4/10 of a second (and they were using stop watches...). Jon and I both scored some nice Maxxis DH tires, which was cool. They're doing another race in two weeks, and I'm going to try to make that one too. The race, including an all-day lift ticket, was about $35 (I forget the exact amount for some reason - I'm on antihistamines right now though...). There was one woman Expert, one woman Sport, and one woman Beginner (who I think was faster than the Sport). They all scored tires (except since the Sport woman was wife to one of the owners of WTB, she forfitted the tire...). Need more women out there... After the race, I checked out a killer brand new Expert trail that starts at the top called "Sticks and Stones". This trail turned out to be a technical shopping spree! starts off right away with a very nice table top, and then a couple of doubles that were spread a little too far apart for me. After a very slight uphill, I hooked up with a couple of fellow DHers, and decided to follow them down. lots of 1.5'-3' log and rock drops, banked and loose turns, one killer log that you can ride up, cruise along for about 15' before dropping off of the end (~3 to 3.5') drop. Then, the scariest thing I have ever done: a rock drop that starts at about 5', but ends up being more since the landing slopes down. They (Northstar) claim that it's a 6'-7' drop, but all I know is it was freakin' insane, and there is no way I would have done it without my DH bike, my gear on, lots of addrenaline already pumpin', and someone around to witness it (or scrape me off of the ground). Nice weather, great race, great riding, great fun, great weekend... -Scott
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