Jackie Harmony our Team racer from USA sent us some graet info. "The
revamped downhill course in Angel Fire was extremely difficult and took
a lot of physical effort to pull off a complete run. What used to be a
long rock garden at the top are now two very long rock gardens.
Throughout the first three days of practice the course was wet and
slippery due to the 6 inches of snow that accumulated during our
practice and camping. Luckily the course dried up the day before the
race. The Loeka Pin Stripped “leisure suit”, as Keith Mott of KHS
Bicycles calls it, helped to keep me mud free and dry on those sloppy,
snowy days. Our seeding run was on Sunday and had added difficulty from
last years course due to the new section added by the Mountain States
Crew, Nate Mckabe and Ryon Reed of the Chile Pepper Bike Shop, which
now resides in Angel Fire. My Kenda tires pushed their way down the
whole course and helped me to qualify 5th behind some of the fastest
girls I know. I qualified behind Melissa Buhl (1st), Darian Harvey
(2nd), Lisa Myklak (3rd), and Abigail Hippley (4th).
Race day was relaxed and long. I did not race until the late afternoon,
after the entire Beginner, Sport and Expert classes. I had plenty of
time to have Matt with Hayes look over my brakes and get them dialed in
for my race. I made sure I drank my daily bottle of Nuun that keeps me
hydrated and energized before I took off for my race run. My race run
was not exactly clean. The Zumbi F-44 kept accelerating through the
rocks but I was off my line. I managed to fly over the bars and hit my
face shield on a rock, so hard that it made me bounce onto my back. I
also slammed my leg into some rocks that somehow found their way
underneath me. I have to say I don’t know what I would do without my
661 helmet, protective jacket and kneepads. I picked myself up from my
crash and darted down the course for the awesome jumps scattered down
the faster sections towards the bottom of the course. I crossed the
finish line in first place with a time of 7:06, but it didn’t last.
Abigail Hippley managed to cross the line a second faster to kick me
out of the winners chair. With the last three girls who came through,
two of them managed to beat my time and push me down to fourth place. I
am stoked to get 4th place with a good crash on my back. Next time, no
scorpions through the rock gardens!" Congratulations Jackie! Jackie
flying the 4X jump
http://www.zumbi.pl/jackie_chile.jpg
