This Past weekend in Winter Park, Colorado we had round 4 of the Pro GRT. It was a long 20 hour drive to the resort from San Diego but it was worth it when we got there. We stayed at our friend Price's house just down the road from the resort so it was nice not having to drive too far each morning. Once we got in to Winter Park we relaxed the rest of the day at the house and got some sleep that we needed, waking up the next morning and going to practice that afternoon. Kieran and I did some runs on the race course and were surprised of how long the course ran down the mountain, it was really steep and fun up in the top half but flattened out a lot in the lower half. It was definantly one of the most tireing courses I've done. I was enjoying myself though because it was fun up top and it was a lot of fun following Kieran learning the good lines and keeping up with him. Later that day on our last run it started pouring rain once we got to the top. It was one of the most fun runs I've done in a while and there was a river running down the entire course. On the next day of practice in stayed sunny all day and the course seemed to dry up a lot but some of the sections were still slippery and the roots were like ice. But other then that, we had a good next 2 days of practice as the course got dryer and dryer. On Saturday, Jake Payne and I did the Alpine Slide they have there at the resort, it is the 2nd longest in the world. That thing is so fun I didnt want to stop doing it but it was really expensive. You got going so fast on it, it got scary after a while. I heard stories of people going over the sides and getting hurt and I didnt want that to happen the day before my race. I was going to film it on the Go Pro camera but it ran out of batteries once I got to the top. The slide was definantly an experience though!
On Sunday we didnt have a qualifier like the pros did. We just went straight into the race after the pros did their qualifying run. I was kind of nervous at the top thinking about how long the course is and how tired I will be at the end. But I got on the spin bike and started to warm up losing all the gitters and getting my head into it. About 5 minutes from my start time it started to sprinkle rain a little bit. I got into the start gate and started my race run. I took the few first corners conservative trying to get into the groove and put together a fast race run. I felt good for a while and started to get going fast but soon I was making mistakes. During the top half I came to a stop 5 times trying to save myself from crashing and then had a good one were my feet blew off the pedals and I almost went over the bars. I was pretty mad after that so I turned up the heat on the lower half and carried my speed awesome through the flat bits. Went into the lower high speed stuff and felt really good and crossed the finish line into 2nd just less then a second off Jake Payne. I was pretty gutted and knew that I couldve been in contention to win if not for those mistakes. But only 2 people crossed the finish line faster then me and jake putting us in 4th and 3rd, i got 4th. Bryson Martin took the win and Sam Powers in 2nd. Kierans race was up next and it poured rain for him and he came down in 4th place in the pro's class. It was deffinantly a good weekend, both of us finishing in the top 5 and had some fun outside the race lighting fireworks and having a bit of fun on Sunday night celebrating. Thanks to Jeremiah for all the hard work through the weekend and Steve for making our bikes dialed and making sure we had the best equipment all weekend, people dont know how much that helps. Thanks to all the Sponsors who help us out and make us do what we do. We have a bit of a break and then its off to the World Cup finals were I hope to race and the World Championships the weekend after were I hope to represent the USA for my last year in juniors.
photo: Long Nguyen
