The Moe’s Woodward West Race report

After a hard week at work, I was looking forward to racing again. No matter how much I searched the net, there were a few pictures and few information about the Woodward West races. We hope that with our race reports, we can give future racers an insight about this super fun race.

As we arrive to the venue, we parked along side the road, there was hardly any parking. No biggie. Joe and I suited up and we took the shuttle up to the top. We signed up (it was nice to know that the ladies recognized me) and we took our first run.

The course was fast, loose and with a couple of small rock gardens. A course that really didn’t suit me. Don’t ask me why, but I always have an issue with twisty, sweepy type of courses. I didn’t have trouble with the upper rock garden like Joe did, I simply let the suspension of the KHS DH200 do its work over the rocks.

Not being a “lander” (I can jump, I just can’t land),I pumped through the different table tops and doubles (I really have to learn how to land). I was having a heck of a time with the last right hander to the table top and the second to the last left turn as I was over shooting it.

Kim “The Champ” gave me some great advice on how to get over those two turns, she said “just look at the inside line, the bike will follow”. Well, she IS our champ for a reason, on my last 2 practice runs I totally nailed those two turns.

On my first race run, I had a very clean run, I was extremely happy with myself and when I looked at my time, I was 1 second ahead of Joe and 10 seconds behind third place. Here’s an interesting tidbit, my team mate Joe goes from “Just Joe” on the practice runs to “J. Sizzzle” comes race time. Joe was a bit disappointed on his first run and he had room for improvement. I was happy with my run and I didn’t really know how to improve it.

For my second run, my primarily goal was to do the same thing that I did on my first run and avoid making a mistake. I knew that the pressure was on Joe, and even though a second may not seem much, in racing, it is.

I did manage to improve my time on my second run by almost 2 seconds, but J. Sizzzle did it again, coming from behind and improving his last run by almost 3 1/2 seconds just edging The Moe out by 7/10ths of a second for the combined runs and a podium finish.

All I can say is that I had a great time racing. I came up a little short but that is racing. I’m just happy to see myself improving and my confidence building every time I race downhill.

Big thanks to our sponsors: KHS Bicycles, HossMTB, Evomo, Ergon, and Serfas Optics, which by the way it is the Official Eyewear provider of Team MtnBikeRiders.com