MNSCS#10, Jail Trail

Season finale in St. Cloud. It was a weird race for me, as I really didn't have much to race for points-wise, and I pretty much just came to ride.

Race starts and I get my best jump off the line of the year. I was where I wanted to be towards the end of the prologue, but soon realized it didn't matter as there was a waiting line to go into the singletrack. We came back through the start/finish to start the first lap, and Jamison was right behind me. My goal was to pace him into the singletrack and let him get around me. He went by and I let off the gas a bit to recover.

I was riding much better than I had the week before when we came to preride, but it didn't matter as several singlespeeders and a few others wouldn't yield the trail. Pretty much the rest of my race consisted of being stuck behind someone in the singletrack, working like a dog to pass them in the doubletrack only to get stuck behind the next guy. I'd have paid an extra $32 for one big, nasty climb just to have a place to drop some people. Flat and twisty is not my thing.

Last lap I'm still feeling pretty good, but in the expert section a guy goes down right in front of me and jams me up. 5 guys go around us and I'm screwed. (Not blaming the dude, it's a super tight corner with a handlebar width to fit through, I didn't make it the first time through either.) I fly as fast as I can through the final loop and try to finish strong. I can hear someone right on me so I gun it. I took a corner way too hot but somehow pulled it back before nailing a tree, and got a "Nice save!" from the guy behind me. I was able to hold him off at the finish, but it really didn't matter. 15th place. 8 places separated by 30 seconds (traffic jams killed me). Jamison had a nice race, I think he got 6th.

So, I think I'll end up 5th overall for the second year in a row. Congrats to Brian and Jason for killing us all year and to Kevin for coming on strong at the end. Despite just missing out on my goal of top 3, it was a fun year. Looking forward to 2008.