Well, the first Fluidride Cup Series has come and gone, and was a huge success. The finals at Mt Hood Oregon served up sunny skies and Malache’ (perfect dirt) conditions. There were a lot of fast guys and gals present, and the racing was tougher than ever.

Series Final Results   Series Overall Results    Series Dual Slalom Final

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The Men’s Pro division saw Bart McDaniel (Center Cycles) and Lars Sternberg (Fluidride) come into the final round only one point away from each other, so we knew racing was going to be fast. Ok, fast doesn’t really describe it. I had a pretty decent first run posting a 2:26, which looked to have me in the top five or so riders in a best of two run format after the first run. Looking at some of the times I knew I was pretty close to the leaders, until I scanned to the top of the sheet and saw a blistering 2:17 (tying Bryn Atkinson’s Course record) next to Bart Mc Daniels’ name. I admit, I was pretty blown away. Barty had taken the first run by a good margin. Luke Strobel (Maxxis) was the only other rider to go under 2:20 with a super fast 2:19. After my second run, I was able to catch a glimpse of a few of the last riders coming down, including Lars Sternberg, who was hammering like mad on the pedals accross the line, coming very close to taking the race, and the season victory with a smoker at 2:18. In the end, only one second separated Bart and Lars for the overall title, with Bart edging Lars out to take the $500 first place check, the $500 overall check for the season, and the season pass to Steven’s Pass Ski Area. Lars still walked away with a cool $600 for his hard days work by taking the second place check for the day and for the season. Special thanks for the end of season purse go out to Brad Delzer at Shiloh Cyclery who raffled off a Demo 7 straight off the floor of his Gresham Oregon shop to rasie the funds. If you see Brad around, be sure to thank him for helping make this such a special season. Our industry is small and tight knit, and the money for these types of events comes right out of pocket from small business owners, so be sure to get in to Shiloh if you live in Oregon, and support the guys who support our sport. Below are the results for the top ten Pro Men:

Bart    McDaniel    Center Cycle/FSA    2.17.71    1
Lars    Sternberg    Fluidride    2.18.66    2
Luke    Strobel    Team Maxxis    2.19.99    3
Phillip    Wiering    Fluidride/Maxxis    2.23.70    4
Ethan     Mutoli    Mutoli Racing / Factory Rotec & Center Cycle    2.25.58    5
Richard    Mukai    Troy Lee Desigins, Rotec, Fox Shox, T.B.T. Racing    2.25.82    6
Simon    Lawton    Fluidride    2.26.19    7
Darrell    Young    Arrow/ Team Psycho    2.27.07    8
Jim    Johnston        2.27.70    9
Casey    Northern    Fluidride/Vitrtual Descent    2.27.80    10

The speed in the Semi Pro category at this race was the fastest of the year. It was almost as if the top riders were out to prove they could handle the speed of the Pro class in their last race as Semi Pros (there will be no more Semi-Pro next year) before turning Pro. In the end Charlie “spaz” Sponsel (Team Robot) turned out a scorcher, taking the category by only two tenths of a second over Eric Loney (Project 529/661), who has been on the gas all year long. Keith Thompson stayed consistent to end out what has been a very fast year of riding to take third for the day, and third overall for the series.

The expert categories were all very competitive as they have been all year long. The 19-29 category saw Bryan Crumb (West Coast Racing/Wheel Sport East) take a convincing win posting a 2:30, with Patrick Funk (Team Robot) and Bryan Keiffer (Team Psycho) rounding out the top three. The 30-39 category had a repeat winner in the form of Matt Patterson (Dirt Corps) who stood atop the podium with Paul Lacava (Giant) and Khristian Hansen (Volcanic Manufacturing) also making an appearance on the box. In the expert 40+, Chris Bentley (Sega/Black Diamond Bikes) took the win over Darrel Jamieson (Azonic/Sega) and Mark Brent (Bonesovermetal.com) also wrapping up the series in that same order.

The junior expert category was heated as usual. After watching some of these riders in the technical woods sections of the track during practice I have to say I was very impressed. Watching Jimmy Bass (Wheel Sport East) come through a few of the sections was every bit as impressive as watching the pros ride them. At the end of the day, Jimmy came out on top with a quick 2:30. Connor Mishalanie (team Mukai) took second place for the day (nice job Connor!) with Downhiil Zone’s Harrison Phelps rounding out the top three. Series winner Brian Guse (Dirt Corps) took it easy rolling to fourth place to take the overall title for the season. Jake Grob rounded out the top five.

In the expert ladies division, Jaime Rees (Wheel Sport East) took the win over Chelsea Stevens with a very fast 3:10. She also took the sportsmanship award, since she stopped to help Pro rider Joy Mutoli (Mutoli Racing) who went down hard, seperating her collar bone and tearing her ACL. Jaime was allowed a re-run where she posted her winning time. Casey Stamm and Brooke Shore rounded out the category.

I want to thanks all the riders who made the long trip down from Canada to represent. We appreciate your efforts to come and be a part of US racing, and hope to see you all (and more!) again next season.

All in all it was an epic weekend of racing, with the sun shining and the Mountain looming large above the Bowl. As with the last race, I stayed the night on Sunday, and rallied runs down the Glade Trail until my arms and legs couldn’t take any more. Watching the mountain disappear in the rear view mirror while driving away from the mountain reminded me of the feeling I’ve had every year for the last 20 years when leaving the last race of the season at Hood, a feeling of nostalgia for the year gone by, mixed with excitement of the next year to come.

There are so many people to thank for making this such a great season. Thanks go out to our sponsors and the people behind the companies who work so hard to make sure we got the support needed to pull off such a great season; Mark and Elayna from Fox, Dave and crew at e.thirteen, Chris at Maxxis, Jason at Sunline, Tyler at SDG, Anka at Crankbrothers, Shannon and Mike at Troy Lee Designs, the guys at Transition (thanks for the great prizes!). Special thanks go out to Brad Delzer at Shiloh Cyclery for organizing such an amazing raffle all year long and to Todd Olsen for helping be the glue to get us all to work together to pull off such a great year. Thanks also go out to the entire Hurrican Crew; Petr, Greg, Tom, and all the ladies in registration. Thanks for your continued hard work. I’d also like to give a shout out to the N’Dub Crew in Port Angeles (Lars, Casey, Scott, Summer) for their hard work on the trails and organizational work, and to Tyler from Green Crow and Wayne Fitzwater from the DNR for believing in us, and giving us a chance to show we could use their land responsibly. I’d also like to thank anyone who showed up to do trail work (Team Robot, Brad Watt, Eric Loney, Cheri, Todd and anyone I forgot) on the amazing courses we rode this year. Of course these races would be nothing without riders who are willing to travel, race, sweat, and bleed along side one another; so thanks to all of you for making the trek to PA and Mt Hood from places around the state, country and around the world (riders came from Alaska, Colorado, California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Idaho, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and Canada). THANK YOU ALL, AND ANYONE I FORGOT! See you all next year,

-Simon