Conshohocken, PA, USA:  Gravity East confirmed late Thursday night that defending Gravity East Champion and world-travelling phenom Neko Mulally will compete at the season-opening Yee Ha! Downhill at Virginia’s Massanutten Resort on May 1.  “I’m stoked to do a race at home,” said Mulally in his confirmation e-mail.

Mulally, who only turned 17 last month, has already beaten riders such as Cedric Garcia, Kyle Strait and Matti Lehikoinen this year.  And in one of his first international races in Spain, the teenager, who would be considered a “rookie” in most American sports, turned in a 6th place finish.

Though Mulally will be racing the full World Cup Series for Trek World Racing this year, he has an affinity for the Gravity East Series.  “No other race series would prepare me better for 2010 in the World Cup,” said Mulally this past winter.  Indeed, Massanutten Resort is a former World Cup Downhill venue.  Mulally plans to compete in as many Gravity East Events as his European and World Cup campaigns allow.

For more information on the Gravity East, including links to the Yee Ha! Downhill at Massanutten, see www.GravityEastSeries.com.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the Midwest will host a Pro Cross-Country Tour (Pro XCT) mountain bike race on June 26-27, 2010. The Subaru Cup, presented by Trek, will welcome the USA Cycling Pro XCT to Nordic Mountain, outside Wautoma, WI. The Subaru Cup is the annual mega-event of the Wisconsin Off Road Series, and is one of only five Pro XCT events in America during the 2010 racing season. Other venues on the Pro XCT Tour include the Sea Otter Classic, in Monterey, California and the Mellow Johnny’s Classic, hosted on Lance Armstrong’s Rancho de Juan Pelota in Dripping Springs, TX. North America’s top male and female racers, including those who represented the United States and Canada in the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, will compete at the Subaru Cup to qualify for the 2010 National Championships and 2012 Olympics. The race at Nordic Mountain will offer a real taste of Midwest mountain biking, with wooded singletrack, fast descents and short, steep climbs.

WORS will offer a large prize list at the Subaru Cup, with an increased size and depth of awards totaling nearly $7000 for top finishers in the Pro XCT. Cash prizes will be awarded over 30 places in the Pro men’s field and over 20 places for the Pro women. A Pro Short Track, presented by Wheaties Fuel, will also offer racers the chance to compete for cash payouts. In total, nearly $10,000 in cash prizes will be distributed. WORS is able to substantially increase the size and depth of the prize field above the requirements of the International Cycling Union thanks to the generous support of committed WORS sponsors, including Title Sponsor, Subaru, Subaru Cup Presenting Sponsor, Trek Bicycle Corporation, and Impreza Pro Short Track Presenting Sponsor, Wheaties Fuel.

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.