$30 !!!

I won $30 for crushing both stages of the Socorro race this weekend in a SS field that had 17 riders.  Socorro is notorious for not giving out much money.  One year I finished about a minute down on Damien Calvert for second place and the race promoter gave me a folded up $20.  Wow.  I definitely don’t do this for the money.

What do I do it for?  Socorro’s XC course got doused with rain all Friday night.  Luckily we raced the hillclimb on Saturday which was shortened due to a nice layer of new snow up top.  I smartly ran the 32X22 which I was supposed to run last year.  With ridiculously light wheels and semi-slicks, I cruised through the slick sections and floated up the steeps.  After putting a decent gap on my main competition, I backed out of the pain cave and hung out at the doorway.  In less than an hour I was at the finish which was quite nice.  Blue skies, fresh snow on the peaks, and kind of warm.  The ride down was pretty interesting with the semi-slicks and Stan’s rotors.

A bunch of us camped out near the start of the of the XC race and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon and a perfect night of sleep.  It’s pretty funny that so many people camp at this spot now.  Our first time out there we were the only ones at this spot.

The XC course was sure to be fast after getting a good soaking.  It’s amazing how much better some of the trails in the southwest get so much faster after a good rain.  After winning the SS category, I went out for a third lap.  I’m not sure where I would have placed in the pro or expert category, but I think I would have done ok.  The pro category was stacked with the regulars plus Travis Brown and Trevor Downing.  Trevor was getting really fast back when I first upgraded to semi-pro after winning the expert short track championship in ’06. 

It was a super fun weekend with a great field of racers on a great course.  Too bad the town of Socorro won’t pay out the fields better than they do.