MSC #8 Blast The Mass Race Results

I know this is really late, but I've been pretty busy lately. Better late than never... right!?

Anyways, we had 5 team members, Kazzy Saito, Adam Lavender, Blake Treadway, Andrew Templin, and Eric Landis, in attendance for this year’s Blast the Mass MSC race. This race was interesting because it had two DH races instead of a 4X or Dual Slalom. The race on Saturday was mainly a huge let down to most racers. The race course was like a throwback to the late 90’s in that it was just tape flowing down the open ski runs with grass as high as your handlebars. This made seeing what you were riding over very difficult and dangerous! It was so bad a lot of racers boycotted it and decided not to race to try and teach Snowmass that they can’t get away with a course like that in this day and age. By race time, most of the grass had been beaten down (or weed wacked) and you could see what you were riding over. The fastest pro time on this course was 4:26 by Joey Schusler.

Adam Lavender didn’t get to race in any races at all because he ended up hurting his wrist pretty bad while out riding some fun trails around the area after practice on Friday. He says it’s probably just a sprained wrist, maybe a couple small fractures, but no noticeable separations. He thinks he’ll be good to go for Sol Vista in a few weeks.

The race course on Sunday was the same exact course it has been in years past. Fast and extremely Rough pretty much sums it up. I didn’t make it up to Snowmass until Saturday night and was planning on racing this course on Sunday. Well, according to USA Cycling rules you can’t register the day of the event for Gravity events so that plan was foiled. I did manage to steal Adam’s number plate (since he was injured and not racing) and take a run with Kazzy in the morning for fun. After that run I was pretty glad I wasn’t racing. You really need to have your suspension dialed to be fast on a course like that and I sure didn’t.

While waiting for our first racer on Sunday, Kazzy, to come down, my phone rang. It was Kazzy to tell me he crashed in the top section and dislocated his pinky finger. He went straight to the emergency room where he found out it was dislocated and he had a small bone chip on it too. No surgery, just a splint and he thinks he’ll be back racing soon for sure. Our next racer down the course was Blake, who came blazing through the finish line into 3^rd place for CAT 1 Men 30-39…. His best finish yet (See the picture)! Andrew came in next with a very respectable time, but was disappointed with his run because he crashed in the waterfall section. Finally, Eric came flying through the finish line with a great solid run. He and blake practiced all three days together and said they dissected the course more than they ever had before. Apparently it paid off for both of them! The fastest time of the day on this course was 4:03 set by Pro rider Trevor Trinkino

Team Results:

Kazzy (CAT 2 Men 30-39): Race 1 – 3^rd 5:12 Race 2 – DNF (Injury)

Adam (CAT 2 Men 30-39): Race 1 – DNS Race 2 – DNS (Injury)

Blake (CAT 1 Men 30-39): Race 1 – 8^th 5:04 Race 2 – 3^rd 4:41

Andrew (Pro Men): Race 1 – Did not register Race 2 – 28^th 4:35

Eric (Pro Men): Race 1 – 7^th 4:36 Race 2 – 14^th 4:17

~Peter Knepper