Firestone NCS Race Report; Mo' Medals, No Problems

I'm a sweaty Swedish guy, and as such, HATE really hot days. Friday, it was REALLY frikkin hot. At 100 degrees, Randy, Trevor and I rolled into the Firestone NCS campsite and set up. Within seconds, I was ready to down a gallon of Double Barrel Ale. Trevor and Randy prepped their bikes, waited for the rest of the team to arrive, and I went to work at the KENDA booth. Did I say it was hot? It was so hot, I coulda' done some "crotch-pot-cookin'" in my chamois. mmmmm..crotch-pot-cookin'....

Late Friday/early Saturday (around midnight?) Randy and Taylor awoke to the sound of what seemed to be a large mammal that had been victimized by a mountain lion. After the need to urinate overcame their fear of death, the boys slipped out to see what the hell was making that noise. To their amazement, the noisy beast turned out to be a mid-40's white dude that had a bad food reaction to pizza, and had been paralyzed with poisining to the extent of foaming at the mouth and complete immobility. Taylor woke me up at 1am or so to call 911 and guide them in, since he did not know where the hell we were. Around 1:45am, the cops/medics arrived from Buellton and loaded this poor bastard up, but none of us really slept after that.
Saturday was DH day, and Jay said he just wasn't feelin' it and bowed out. Taylor went for it, though, and had a decent first run that landed him in 9th. After his second run without any major mistakes, he had a great 13th place finish out of a LOADED Semi-Pro field. Randy's son Trevor, racing beginner, had a guy in front of him crash on the first run, then blew his tire on the second. This kid is REALLY fast and will return for vengeance in Fontana next week. If we are lucky, we can convince him to hang out with us for the 2008 racing calendar!



Saturday Vanessa, Ryan and Bert also raced Super-Dizzle. Bringing the first podiums of the weekend, they placed 7th, 5th, and 5th respectively. The course was very fast and bumpy, as was the XC course they would find after the team pre-ride. Saturday for me was spent building the KENDA demo-bike fleet, and selling product to the needy masses. Small Block 8's and Short Tracker's went like mad, but sales were kinda slow due to people just trying to find shade and water.


VEGAS BOB was the story for the weekend. After two years of sickness and training, VB FINALLY got to wreak his vengeance upon the Expert class. Bob exploded and rolled like a juggernaught through the course, landing himself a SOLID 7th place finish out of a HUGE field of top-ranked experts. Glad to see ya back, Vegas! Also, Bob was there with a GIRL! That's right, a non-inflateable real-life GIRL! Bob's gonna get some..Bob's gonna get OOPs..sorry, got a bit outta control there for a second.
Bert Blanchette tore off a podium spot in SINGLE SPEED semi-pro/expert, and placed THIRD! This being done with a broken hand, and after racing the day before. The pic below is of his modified palm-relief-shock absorber that he designed to take a bit of the course's chop. That's frikkin' tough, eh.


James, Randy and Ryan were first to roll out on the XC Sunday. The wizards at Blue Wolf decided that, after letting all riders pre-ride the course for two days, they would then modify the course Sunday am about ten minutes before the race. Oh yeah, and did I mention that the night before, the moved up all XC start times by thirty minutes? Hope ya got the non-existant memo! This made for great fun as the racers tried to identify the un-marshalled and inadequately marked course after the changes had been made. Results couldn't be posted for HOURS due to the massive protests filed by riders who went the RIGHT way who got screwed by course cutters..who had no idea they cut the course. It's amazing that people still are willing to race in CA. The level of incompetence (when compared to other series' across the U.S.) is unparalelled.
Randy placed 22nd out of 44 thanks in large part to a crash at the start that blocked half the riders from progressing. James escaped unscathed, and rode his ass off to an amazing 9h place finish. That comes after MONTHS of living in Florida and not training at all.


Ryan Blanchette (son of The Hurt) rolled to his second podium of the weekend, taking third in his XC race. He had to protest his result, as well, since a Platinum rider who was well behind him took the Pro modified loop shortcut at the top of the hill and shaved a sweet 20 minutes off his lap time. Four hours later, we finally got the protest to stick, and Ryan was awarded his rightfull third place.
Experts went next, and that meant the Fuzziest, Vegas Bob, and Vanessa were set to start. The Fuzz had been suffering on nature hikes on the Channel Islands, and had nothing left for his Expert race. Suffering in the heat, the Fuzz was quickly overtaking by teammate Vegas Bob...and the Women's Auxiliary Librarian's Club. Bob killed it, Fuzzy just wanted to be killed. He finished it though, so please get him a boot o' beer as soon as you can.

Vanessa's race was an epic battle. Looking for revenge after Scottsdale's rocks took her podium spot, Ms. Humic blew out to an early third place. At the half-way mark, Vanessa crashed incredibly hard, and lost three spots. Climbing back up the hill, she jumped gingerly back upon the bike and immediately attacked. She BLASTED her way back into the pack and managed to re-take a podium finish, placing 4th with dirt and blood all over the place. That was one hell of a fight, and Vanessa is on course to whip someone off that first place spot really soon.


Bert "The Hurt" was the last to race, running Single Speed with a recently busted hand. Modifying the bars to give him more cushion, Bert surprised his OWN SELF and raged to a THIRD place podium spot. That's two podiums for him, and two for his son...can you say "Dynasty?"


***This photo is of Randy, at the end of his race, CHARGING past a line of his competitors, passing FIVE GUYS in a quarter mile of hard fought singletrack. I saw this whole thing, and can't tell you how impressive this was!***


All in all, we had a great weekend. ROGER worked his ass off, feeding everyone and putting in ridiculously long days in the KENDA booth. Everyone owes Roger a thanks, including me.
James even drove all the way down to Gaviota during Sunday afternoon's race to get some important items we all had left in Rand's truck! He still made it back in time to help feed, and break down the KENDA trailer for 4 hours.
Great team work everyone, you guys really help to make this team stand out, and represent the Ol' Skool ideals that made mountain biking great.


On another note...TIMARI PRUIS, friend of Backbone and Pro endurance for the Kenda/XFusion team, placed a rippin SECOND PLACE at the 24 hours of Idyllwild mountain bike race! Oh, and she did it all without any help from her team, who requires a TON of help from her. Great work TIMO, we love ya!




***King James, being a very dirty boy.***










***Vanessa enraged after a mid-course crash dropped her from 3rd to 6th******