Dual Slalom

[shiloh]

My older brother called me up last week and asked me if I wanted to do a dual slalom race.  I thought about it for a minute. I hadn't done a dual slalom race sense 2005.  What the hell, I told him, I'll give it a shot.  My Brother, Auric, has been racing with the Santa Cruz collegiate mtb team.  This was the final race of the collegiate season, there had been an xc race the day before and there was a short track race the next morning just before the slalom.  I didn't race the short track and I'm glad for it the course was straight up and straight down, and filled with goat head thorns.  And as it turns out college kids like to party so most of them where not in great shape for the short track at 8 am. 

A hand full of the x Whole Athlete racers were there and I got to find out that they make me look just as silly racing down hill as xc.  I raced in the B class and qualified 5th for the main event. in my first heat the kid I raced against crashed out. I hate to win that way but I'll take it.  There was a long wait between the first and second heat but that was cool, I got to watch a lot of good head to head races.  For the second heat I was up against the 4th place qualifier, he got lane choice and chose the faster lane. We were neck and neck through the first couple of turns.  My foot wasn't on my pedal quite right and I bobbled trying to get it right I saw him get a head.  I bobbled again going into the rhythm section and that was it. he had too big a gap on me no matter how hard I pedaled I wasn't catching up. he probably be me by about 2 seconds.

I'm happy with my result, but now I'm psyched to get out and race some more slalom. It was a great day of taking practice runs, neck and neck, with my brother and catching up with the kids that used to come into the shop.