Race Report: Greener Grasses 3rd Annual St. Patty's Day Feast @ Bootleg Canyon

as told by The Path Bike Shop team member, Nancy Harris.

Another awesome weekend of riding and racing at Bootley Canyon has come and gone!!! This particular race was important to many of us as it was our 1st race without the original promoter David "Crash" Collins being present. As many of you know, he passed away earlier this year and Francine Johnson took up the mantle and continued on with the race.

And now to the Race Report:

Friday - Since I had Friday off we headed up to enjoy the $20 shuttle for the day. Did 1 run on the race course then ended up riding Diva, Reaper and then Boy Scout/Girl Scout. Was thoroughly tired by the end of the day since there was no shuttle pickup and we had to ride back each time. Thank goodness for the new paved bike trail and the fact that they paved the road from the bike path to the the restrooms!!!

Saturday - Headed out to the Venue and hooked up with Foesnasty. Got on the shuttle at 9:00am and proceeded to do 7 race runs and then a run on Diva. Had to stop and rest at that point cause my quads/calves were burnin' from all the hiking!!!!

The most memorable part of the weekend was the Memorial ride on Girl Scout. Dave's widow, Patty was in attendance and they put up a memorial Kairn at the trailhead and placed some of Dave's ashes in it. There was a good showing for the ride (2 shuttle trucks worth) and we did a train down Girl Scout to the gap jump to the left of the restrooms. Unfortunately, Francine opted to go around the jump, slid out and hit her elbow. She ended up in surgery yesterday with a wicked compound fracture and many hours in surgery. Laura later told us that it was much worse than what they could see in the x-ray and if she would have been older they wouldn't have even fixed it.



Nancy Harris, The Path race team. photo: Blue Fire Pictures


Sunday - Woke to pleasant temps and no wind, you can't ask for anything more. Attendance was down 50% compared to the last race so we knew it would be a shorter day and we might get done at a decent hour.

Because Francine was in the hospital, her crew had to pick up the slack and reorganize volunteers. They did a great job as always and even though we got off to a late start, everything went smoothly after that. Oh, and the new timing system worked well too. As soon as the last racer in the Pro class was done, they reset the computer and had the results posted.

So we opted to practice a little later and save ourselves so there wouldn't be too much time between our last practice run and our race runs. Did 2 practice runs and both of them were let's say "less than stellar" especially after the great practice I had on Saturday. Went back to the pits, at some lunch, rehydrated and waited for race time.



Roger Gutierrez, The Path race team. photo: Blue Fire Pictures

I ended up going up to the top with the boys since they were in G and I class and sat around for 30 minutes waiting for my turn. For some reason Open Women is class U which is the last class of the day. I warmed up by spinning backwards and then I was ready to go. I did some positive self talking and deep breathing and off I went!!! I had a clean run, aced all the problem sections and pedaled my a** off at the bottom. I was good enough for a 5:00.28 and 1st place. And I got a Skeletal Metal necklace as swag!!!



Not to forget my awesome coach and husband, who was donning his new TLD Air Moto helmet and had good practice runs, but somehow had some boo boos in his race run (minor of course). He ended up 1st in his class also and got some cool Spank 777Evo chrome handlebars as swag.



It was a great weekend and it was fun to hangout with everyone (Werldcup, HippieDH, Vince, Foesnasty, Chuckie108, BlueFirePictures (Andy) and some other Fontana peeps who aren't on STR).

Dave, we miss you and you will live forever in our hearts!!!