Preston Pride Hillclimb

We're back from our first race of the season....the Preston Pride Hillclimb in Preston, Idaho. The first thing I'm going to say about the race is how nice and helpful everyone was, as well as how well this race was run. Everything went very smoothly as far as staying on time and in order, and there was always a helpful and friendly face from the RMSHA board to help with any questions or concerns. Also, a huge thank you to Brett Rasmussen and all of the other hill help whose names we didn't catch. You guys helped out so much and saved the sled on more than one occasion....THANK YOU!

This type of racing is unlike anything we have ever done before. We thought it was just all about hillclimbing, but it most certainly was not. The first day was the qualifying runs up to the first cat walk. There were two lanes, A and B. Lane A was for all of the Pro Classes, and Lane B was for the Pro Masters, Semi Pro, Women's and Juniors classes. The whole bottom half of the course was a snowcross style course that weaved in between gates and had huge trenches and moguls. We weren't really used to riding that style, so we were definantly slower than everyone else through the bottom. My first run was Women's stock class, there were 10 qualifying spots, and 10 women competing, so everyone was guaranteed a spot in the finals. I was doing pretty good until the course broke out through some trees and went up the face of a rocky hump. I got off my line a little, and it threw me to the opposite side of where I wanted to be, right below a small aspen tree. Well, everyone knows the old saying, throttle is your friend, so I pointed the sled up hill and put the hammer down and drove right over the tree. The tree was a little larger and harder than I was expecting, and instead of bending over, it snapped in half and knocked the sled over and I was done for. The hill help rushed to my aid and got the sled turned around and I headed back down to the bottom. After that class, I found out that I had actually high marked 2 other girls, so I ended up finishing 8th out of 10 in that class for the qualifying round. My second run was for improved stock, which had 10 qualifying spots and 11 women racing, so there was going to be one racer not making it to the finals. By this time, about 3 other classes with multiple heats had ran and the hill had taken a lot more abuse from previous classes by this time so there were a lot more rocks and stumps exposed. I managed to make it all the way to the catwalk with a time of 1:42, which was about 10 seconds slower than the next fastest, however one of the girls ran into some troubles and didn't make it to the catwalk so I beat her out of the finals. So miraculously I qualified for the finals in both of my classes.

Derek also did pretty well for his first time in the Pro class. His first race was for 800 stock and although he was slow through the bottom snowcross style gates, he did very well on the upper half of the course, making it to the cat walk about 9 seconds slower than the next fastest time. After a few more classes ran, it was his turn again to run in the 1000 stock class. The biggest downfall of racing Pro 1000 stock is that there are so many classes who run before you, and the hill turns into an absolute nightmare. You have 600, 700, 800cc with stock, improved stock and mod classes who all run before you so you have 9 classes, some with multiple heats before you get to run 1000. You could tell that the course had gotten a lot worse since his last class, and he was really fighting to keep the sled on course, but because of his awesome abilities, he made it up to the catwalk with a time that was about 15 seconds slower than the next fastest. The great thing was that some riders didn't even make it to the catwalk so Derek placed higher than them. Although it was not fast enough to make it to the finals on either of his classes, he still put out 110% and did a fantastic job.