Webe Racing • Round 5 Report

Located at Pajarito Ski Area, just outside of Los Alamos, NM, Round 5 of Webe Racing’s series promised to be a great venue. With the area recently ravaged by fires, it was uncertain as to whether or not the race would even be held, but after getting the thumbs up from land owners, the race was on!

Saturday’s team race was sweet! It had been raining off and on the night before, so the course was nice and tacky during practice, but about an hour before the team race started, it began to rain heavily again. Eric Rhoten and I teamed up after Adam Krefting had fork troubles and had to drop out after practice. There was a steady rain coming down at the starting line and we knew it was going to be epic. More a game of survival than balls-to-the-wall racing.

Several of the trails that were nice and tacky during the morning’s practice loop had turned into small creeks with running water. It was an eerie feeling riding through burn areas with black, charred ground and tar-like mud. After the first lap, the rain subsided and the course started to dry out. We ended up winning the Pro Team race (results) – that makes tree in a row for Team Skidmark!

Sunday’s main race was brutal. I had some of the worst arm-pump I’ve had in a long time for the first two laps. I had to just let the main group ride away and try to get my arms to come back. After the second lap, I began to settle into a groove and was able to start making up lost places. I ended up 7th out of 17 and was pretty stoked (results). I was able to avoid any crashes and keep mistakes to a minimum.

This was the first race on the new KTM 350 XC. The bike was fantastic – the suspension handled all of the rocks really well, and the motor is amazing. I’ll have more info on the bike in the next post.

Next up is Monte Vista. Another tough mountain course with some nasty river crossings! Should be sweet!

Happy trails – Chris