It’s nice to immediately bookend the Mountain Bike Season with something, well, else.  What better activity than racing cars around in the prairies of Eastern Washington?  Carl and I hastily departed Las Vegas at 6am (not soon enough) on Thursday morning in order to have time to take care of some last minute prep on the Rally Car and maybe, possibly, get a bit of rest before piling into the Dodge with Carl’s Dad for the seven hour drive from Bend to Pomeroy, Washington.  We just barely got the car buttoned up at about 1am but were still on the road, Longboard Louie’s breakfast burritos in hand, by 11am on Friday.  The plan was coming together…

After we left Tech Inspection and Registration with a (for our roving gong-show) minimal amount of being made to feel like complete novices it appeared that the weekend of racing was starting off without a hitch. Our decision to check out the sticking right rear brake was made quite effectively on the short drive to the Pioneer Motel (a whole ‘nother set of issues) during which the car refused to coast and the brake got quite hot, to say the least…  We had the right tools for the job though.  Anything you could ever need was right in the back of the Dodge.  We had a Leatherman, some scissors, vice grips, a hammer and the impact wrench.  And the bucket o’ bolts.  An hour later we’d used the hammer and concrete wall out front in all manner of ways and eventually removed the offending seized part.  It was honed and buffed with the most rudimentary techniques, greased liberally and reinstalled.  Success.  Fortunately on our midnight test drive we realized that the Odometer was already calibrated and promptly went to bed, wondering how triple digit speeds through the praries with only a Route Book would work out in the morning…

Conshohocken, PA, USA:  Neko Mulally, Specialized Team America’s 16 year old phenom, is Gravity East’s 2009 Professional Men’s Champion in both the Downhill and the Dual Slalom divisions following this past weekend’s Gravity East Finals at Plattekill Mountain  New York.  “We have seen the future, and it’s scary fast,” says Gravity East publicist Ken Getchell of Mulally.  “He’s fast and smooth and picks uncanny lines.  Just think what’s he’s going to be like as his body physically matures over the next couple of years.”  Jason Memmelaar (Hayes/5 ten/Manitou/Smith), the winner of the Seven Springs round, was runner-up in the season standings.  Alejandro Ortiz (Nema/Morpheous - Ecuador) finished the year on two podiums, as runner-up to Mulally in the e.thirteen Dual Slalom points championship and as third place overall in the Downhill standings.   Mulally finished the season with five Gravity East Downhill victories and never finished lower than fifth (one race).  On the Dual Slalom side, Neko finished with a perfect score of five victories after dropped races were calculated.  Only a crash in the semi-finals of Saturday’s e.thirteen Dual Slalom kept him from sweeping every race.

Conshohocken, PA, USA:  As racers prepare to battle the trails at New York’s Plattekill Mountain for double points and season championships at this weekend’s Gravity East Finals, it’s useful to not only look at the who’s on top of the chart, but also how they got there.  When the chairlift was turned on at Massanutten Virginia back in the beginning of May, few realized the impact the sophomore year of Gravity East would have.  Since then, 94 men and women have scored points in the pro downhill classes alone.  A total of 1620 entries (up 32% from last year, with one race still remaining) have pulled to the start of at least one Gravity East race this year in both Pro and USA Cycling amateur categories.  The best of the best, however have been Dawn Bourque, Karen Eagan and, of course, Neko Mulally. 

Ed. Note- Sorry for the delay in providing news hot off the press.  I’m fundamentally opposed to spending even one more cent whilst trapped in Las Vegas, and, really, opposed to Vegas in general.  This prevented me from accessing the Internet, since your overpriced room in a friggin’ Casino doesn’t provide this basic 21st century communication need.  Hope it was worth the wait…

I think the UCI has a thing for homophones.  For the past two years an event in Australia has closely followed an event in Austria.  This makes explaining my plans a bit awkward from time to time.  Fortunately, both of these places share not only a sequence of letters, but some pretty good bike riding and general scenery.  I’d give Oz the nod in actual riding but the Austrian Alps sure are scenic.  I’d be hoping to avoid the scenery whilst racing around a World Cup Finals track in Schladming that, to be honest, didn’t really capture my imagination… 

Conshohocken, PA, USA:  The Gravity East Series finishes out a highly successful sophomore season of downhill racing with events on each of the next three weekends.  This weekend, September 26-27, Gravity East opens as the first major racing event at the brand-new Vertical Earth Gravity Park at Pennsylvania’s Blue Mountain.  The following weekend, October 3-4, will again see a new track as Mount Snow, Vermont, will use the Gravity East Series to unveil the recently constructed “Trail 13”.  Then, on October 10-11, the top downhillers in the East, and from throughout North America, will compete for the Gravity East Finals at Plattekill Mountain in Roxbury, NY.