Ryan Nolan's Race Report

Race Report----------

This past weekend was race number 3 of 5 at Diablo Freeride Park. Saturday I was woken up by the sound of hail hitting the house around 3am. The hail lasted only 10 minutes but was followed by extremely heavy rain. I knew at that time it was going to be one of those weekends. Saturdays practice went well with a very wet course but no crashes for me. The rain did hold out though with only a few drizzles here and there. When I woke up Sunday morning my dad said to me "are you sure you still want to go" as we looked at the water coming into the garage. Of course I told him that we were going still. I only had time for 2 practice runs because I had to get back and clean my bike off if I wanted it to work in the race. By the time I cleaned the bike off it was time to head up the mountain. Just then the rain we left back at our house arrived just in time for racing to start. By the time I was to the top, water was running down the mountain like a river. I have raced in mud before but not like this. There was so much water running down the trail it was hard to see any of the lines that I was using in practice, this was partially because my goggles were covered in muddy water. The plus to all this was the rocks were getting washed off after every rider went through so it actually wasn't as slippery as it was in practice. I have to admit when I crossed the finish line I was surprised that I kept it on 2 wheels through some of the rock gardens. I ended up 10th out of 45 racers.