Sonoma MTB National Championships Race Report

Norba Mountain Bike National Championships * Cougar Mountain Classic * Infineon Raceway – Sonoma, California * Thursday July 13th – Sunday July 16th, 2006 *

WOW! dhReno had a fantastic time at Sonoma. Five National Champions, top ten Semi-Pro, 13 podium finishes! The DH course was great, much better than we had expected. The event organizers were friendly and on top of it. What more can you ask for!

Adam on the way to the NC jersey

Adam’s amazing race run to 1st place. Photo by Rick Rasmussen

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DH Race Course on the hill

It was really cool that you could see almost the entire DH course from the venue and parking lot. The puffs of dust on the hill are Experts on their race run. From the parking lot (where we had our tent set up) we could identify individual racers.

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Some of the race crew

Before the Sport race: L2R: Jason, Scotty, Eric, Steve, Davey, Matt, Randy, Adam

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Blanchard on race run

Jason Blanchard pin’n the Semi-Pro race. Jason narrowly missed the podium with a super fast 6th place finish in the Semi-Pro classs and the fastest dhReno finish.

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The 2003 Downhill World Champion, Greg Minnaar, of South Africa, who rides for the Honda downhill team, spoke highly of the Infineon Raceway course… “Some people told me before I came here that it is not a good course, but in fact it is a very good course here. You could host a World Cup here with a few changes. It is steep, there is easily enough of a vertical drop to make it a challenging course. They have a very efficient system for getting the riders back to the top of the hill, so in practice you can have two runs in an hour, which is more than you can at a lot of world cup venues. With the quality of the venue and the facilities and staff, I would like to see a World Cup race here.” Source: Rick Baraff O2 Sport Media

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DH Race Results: Offical Results Click Here the timing staff for this event was very efficient. The results were posted continuously during the event so racers knew where they placed.

Nancy Birch: 1st Expert 45-49, Masters National Champion
Jason Blanchard: 6th Semi-Pro, fastest dhReno time 2:05.38
David Bright: 3rd Expert 40-44
Steve Cleek: 2nd Sport 50+
Adam Connolly: 1st Sport 18, Sport National Champion
John Kresich: 4th Sport 40-49
Eric Opperman: 25th Semi-Pro (out of 44 racers)
Scott Richardson: 1st Sport 50+, Sport National Champion
Davey Robison: 4th Beginner 12 under
Matt Robison: 1st Beginner 19-29, Beginner National Champion
Randy Robison: 6th Sport 40-49
Bill Smith: 2nd Beginner 50+
Cierra Smith: 1st Beginner 10, Beginner National Champion
Clark Wright: 5th Beginner 40-49

Mountain Cross Results:

John Kresich: 4th Sport 40+
Clark Wright: 2nd Sport 40+

Super D Results: Eric Opperman: 11th Open Men 19-29

Podium finishers

Some of the dh Reno podium finishers and jersey winners. L2R: Bill, Adam, Cierra, Matt, Nancy, Davey, Steve, Scotty

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Race Pics by Rick Rasmussen http://www.bikeguy.smugmug.com/ please visit his website to order prints and request original size digital copies. Click thumbnail image to expand.