ROBIN BALOOCHI: NW Cup Round 1 Race-recap

This last weekend was the first round of the NW Cup in Port Angeles, WA. After the Fontana winter series race a couple weeks back I spent a good bit of time getting my bike setup and testing out our new Intense tires. Practice started on friday at 1pm and I decided to wait till friday morning to make the 6 hour drive up to WA. I wanted to get as much time on my bike during my break from school before the race.

After arriving on friday I was eager to get some runs in. It had just rained so I figured it was a good time to try out the mud tire for a couple runs even though it was drying up. The Intruder tire was great, it's a perfect tire for semi-muddy conditions. After about an hour it was back to the Edge tires and it didn't take long to get comfortable on the track. It was a great course with some tight corners, one steep bit and a lot of rough braking bumps and banked corners, it was definitely a proper DH course. Sat practice was also dry and everyone was pinning it, the dirt was real grippy and the Primer was glued to the ground. It looked like everyone was having fun and the PA shuttle crew was killing it with efficient non-stop shuttles with no lines. I did a timed run at the end of practice so I could have a good idea about my capabilities on race day.

I woke up pretty early on race day and was excited to get on with the race. It rained through the night but surprisingly the track didn't change much. After one practice run I felt good about my lines and was ready for my seeding run. With a few small errors I made it down the hill and qualified in 16th, I was off the pace in comparison to my timed practice run the day before. I ended up making a couple of adjustments to my bike and relaxing a bit before the final race run. In my race run I hit all my lines clean and rode well within my limits. I ended up 14th and improved on my qualifying time by 8 secs. Bryn Atkinson ended up taking the win and got me by 14 sec. Eventhough that's a big chunk of time it was a big jump from the 25 sec gap he had on me in qualifying! It was good to get a mud race in and see where I'm at right now in comparison to guys like Bryn Atkinson who won and Curtis Keene who ended up taking 4th. Bryn had a good gap on 2nd place so overall I wasn't that far of the podium. This race was a huge improvement on the fontana race a couple weeks back so I'm gonna use this moment to push forward to the start of the season. With 4 weeks to go till the first GRT at Port Angeles I'm gonna be here in Eugene working hard both on and off my bike to be ready. I'll also be heading down to the Sea Otter Classic to kick off the season and hang with the team.

Big props to the NW Cup crew; the race was a lot of fun with a great course, efficient shuttles, great food and flawless logistics, great job guys! Last but not least a big thanks to DRD Tomac and all my sponsors for making this season a reality!

Robin