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Parkfield, October 1st-2nd
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The Parkfield Report 2005
Parkfield embodies the sport of Mountain Biking. It is a race, a party, and a destination that has it all. This weekend Stanford racers competed in four events, Cross-Country, Dual Slalom, Downhill, and Short Track. The courses included winding singletrack, lung-busting climbs, sketchy (dry) creek crossings, hike-a-bikes, sand, rocks, ruts, g-outs, and helipads.
Most of the the team- already about 20 of us- arrived Friday night and set up camp. After some time gathered around the warm crackling glow of the battery-powered lantern, we retired. Saturday morning brought the XC race, with 13 men and 5 women (4 of them making their collegiate mtb racing debut) spread across the A and B categories for Stanford. Tires were flatted and chains were broken, but overall the team's bike fared much better than the previous week, and the team's full entry fields helped us rack up points. Tyler Hester led the way among our 10 MB riders, finishing 5th. An unfortunate fall by Sasha Richey brought out the first helicopter of the 2005 season, but thankfully Sasha suffered no broken bones.
Sasha knocked herself out... literally. She will be taking it easy for a while... maybe starting out on a trainer. But have no fear! She is excited for returning next mtb season. And you can bet that she'll be ready for the road season...
Dual Slalom was scheduled for the afternoon. Team star Eon, a force in endurance and gravity events, unfortunately crashed in a practice run and broke his wrist. He is doing better now, but the team will certainly miss his leadership this season.
Eon's crash:
I must describe it, because even he doesn't remember it all... Eon was physically (and more important, mentally) quite tired from the XC race. Briefly after his return from the XC, he went to get in a practice run or 2 before they closed the DS to water it down and groom it before the qualifying runs. So, Eon took his first run down the course, on his XC bike. He was just cruising along, but did fine. He came up to the last double (maybe 8-10'), and cleared it- no problem. He then went up for a second run. I was standing at the finish line, 20 feet below the double.
Eon came into the last turn, and I knew he didn't have enough speed for the double. But, in Eon's fatigued state, he didn't recognize it. (Actually, when he remembered more of what happened, which was a day later, he confessed that he questioned if he had enough speed.) Anyway, he still went for the double. I knew things were bad since the previous turn... even before he went for the double. He came up short-- no surprise. He landed rear-wheel on the landing... On a DH bike, he might have been able to ride it out. However, on his XC bike, landing that way bucked him into a nose-wheelie... yes, a premature endo. So, as Eon was riding his front wheel after the jump, he body was progressively getting higher and higher in the air, and the ground was dropping away, farther and farther down. (The landing of the jump was on a moderate downslope.) And his nose-wheelie matured into an endo. From his head/body seeming like it was 7 feet in the air, he then met the dirt. He hit his head twice, and broke and dislocated his wrist in the process. He came to a stop nearly at my feet.
"Oh, no." That was what went through my head at the turn, at the double, in the air, and as Eon was on the ground. "Is he going to get up?" That was my thought, and I briefly held my breath in anticipation. Two seconds later... I sigh. He was not getting up. He was out.
For anyone who has observed a concussion before, Eon had the classic signs. "My wrist hurts.
What does it look like?"
"Like this." I drew a contortioned limb in the air.
"Oh."
"And I've already told you that 5 times." (That was 5 times in the last 10 minutes.)
"Oh! Classic signs of a concussion!" Eon was still alert enough to remember his medical training. Too bad he couldn't make use of his training to keep him from crashing.
I helped out the EMTs, (I'm also a certified EMT, but out of practice)
and was one of the group to carry him to the helicopter.
Our top female rider, Lisa Stright, was the only Stanford rider to qualify in the DS competition... And she did great, being that it was her 1st try at riding DS. She came away tied for 5th (which is how the bracket works out.)
It seemed that a lot of Pros, who just happened to be enrolled at itty-bitty community colleges and such, came out for this race. So, despite being 1 sec faster than last year, I didn't qualify for the bracket. We'll see if Gabe fixes the results to include qualification times...
The DS did prove to be an exciting race, though (as usual.)
Sunday morning came the best quote:
"Rafer didn't come back last night!" These sound like they may have been words from Dan McGarry.
My escort service is not for hire; however gratuities are accepted, particularly brownies. I guess I missed a little of the pixie party.
Sunday: the DH!
I was still nerve-strained by Eon's crash. I pulled off the same
time I had as 2 years ago... not slow, but not racing like I had something
to prove (which how I was racing 2 years ago.) I got a top-20 finish...
14 seconds behind Sanjay (the winner.) One second faster would have been
3 places; 2 seconds would have been 7 places. Dennis improved a lot; he
is a much faster racer when he doesn't crash. Lisa walked more than she
would have liked, but was just being extra-cautious after considering that
Stanford had already had 2 helicopter flights for the weekend.
Ricardo seemed to have an awesome run. For a DH rookie, this guy
has some natural talent. He got through the bulk of the course, even through
the nasty stuff. (Nasty is a relative term here... he was riding a bike that
is not as nice as quite a few campus bikes that I've seen on campus.) He
had a foo-foo crash (more like he just fell off the bike), and he jumped
up and kept on going. Twenty yards from the finish, he entered into the
last little dip.
He claims that he was a little too excited; he was being controlled
by pure adrenalin. He came too fast into the dip, and didn't suck it in
prior to the up-slope... and he slammed his shoulder into the bank. He
jumped back up, noticed it was hard to ride, and ran his bike through the
finish line.
And then he noticed that his right arm was hanging a little low.
Yup, broken. He popped his collarbone, but was otherwise fine. (The
collarbone is one of the easiest to break; it's one of the most common
mtb and motocross bone breaks.) Major bummer that he's out for the
season, but he also seemed fired up for next season. If he doesn't crash,
he could prove to be a really fast racer.
STXC- Todd took a shine in this one. He came out as 7th, and felt better. My theory is that biking can sometimes be good for you when you're sick. (Well, it's worked for me a couple of times.
Todd then took some practice runs on the DS course... and he said that he wouldn't have minded racing it. Well! Race it next time, Todd! You should show up the guys who don't pedal uphill. (Like me.) After all, when I was going fairly fast at Arastradero, taking the water-bars as doubles and riding my DS bike, Todd was following me on his XC bike, with his seat fully up... and keeping up with me. His memorable words after the ride, "Rafer, I'm not impressed." AH! I was going too slow for him!!!!
Todd also complained that he would like more company in the MA racing, particularly from the likes of Rand Miller. I don't quite recall if this was accompanied by curses at Rand, or simply "Rand is a ninny." Personally, I think that Rand and Todd should both race DH as well. Or at least DS. Rand has a particular talent for throwing elbows and pushing competing bikers off the trail. (I have experienced this first-hand.) And only being 1 Rand tall, his elbows have a certain ejection effect.. not just pushing people to the side, but lifting them upward (the "eject" effect.)
That was mostly what I saw, and remember. Most of my best memories come from collegiate racing; I highly recommend it. See you at the Stanford race.
-Rafer
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Carolyn |
Aaron and Shawn |
Results summary:
XC:
MA
18 Todd Norwood
24 Andrew Lizotte
27 Eon Rios (2 flats?)
WA
12 Lisa Stright
MB
5 Tyler Hester (time to upgrade to MA)
13 Evan Pickett (nice!)
17 Mike Morici
28 Sam Goldman
29 Aaron Johnson
30 Andre Marta
31 Shawn Scully
38 Daniel McGarry (took wrong turn, did 5 extra miles)
50 Kevin Walters (mechanicals)
WB
3 Carolyn Seto (great for her first race this season. Podium!)
7 Hanna Kim
DS:
WA
5 Lisa Stright
DH:
MA
19 Rafer Willenberg
29 Dennis Lo (good!)
WA
6 Lisa Stright
MB
7 Mike Morici
27 Sean Ardley (lost 1 min due to dropped chain)
MC
18 Ricardo Maduro
STXC:
MA
7 Todd Norwood (very good!)
MB
7 Evan Pickett (solid!)
11 Andrew Lizotte
12 Daniel McGarry
submitted by Rafer Willenberg with Dan McGarry
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