CCCX #4, Crushing Manzantia Park

Tom Doron getting sideways behind Chris Seymour

            This week’s race pitted me against my buddy Tom Doron, who races pro enduro, in the men’s B cross race at Manzanita Park in Prunedale, my first race at this long running CCCX venue.

            The Manzanita Park course was exhausting, looping around multiple baseball/softball fields; the start was an uphill pavement sprint into a right 170 degree u-turn across gravel into the first single barrier. The first barrier was followed by a tight left hander and a slightly off camber section preceding, a sprint around the outfield of a 2^nd field, down through the infield, back around the outfield of a 3^rd field, with a slight uphill into a set of barriers on either side of a left turn. A tight left off camber hairpin brought us back around the 3^rd field to a climb that started on pavement fading into sand, before the track tool a right turn down a fast 45 second long section about before weave thought the infields of two more fields and a short off camber climb right before a hard flat gravel right handed, that took out multiple people in the earlier races, leading back to the start climb.

Photo By: Steven Woo
CCCX #4 start

            On the starting line Chris Neher, on his one speed, lined up on my left with Lee Slone on my right. As the start grew near I was afraid my right foot would come unclipped on the hard uphill start as on warm ups I was having a problem even after tightening the tension on the pedal, but after the whistle I started the sprint and had no problems  taking the hole shot with my co-worker Joey Stanwyck on my wheel. I mistakenly dismounted for the first barrier early and got passed by my Tom Doron as he hopped the first barrier, riding the new Santa Cruz Nomad. With a good remount I caught Tom, stayed on his wheel for a few turns as we built a gap on the first lap.

           The rest of the race was Tom and myself trading first and second while continuing to build a larger and larger gap on Lee, 3^rd, and Joey, 4^th. Tom would go on to  bunny hop all the barriers, and save some time each lap, but I would catch him on some of the straights, until the last lap when he let me go for the win after the last of set barriers.

Photo By: Lee Slone