US Nationals

Barrett Junction, California

Barrett Junction is becoming a regular on the IGSA circuit. This was the third race held here this year. Barrett Junction is about 45 minutes east of San Diego, but just 4 miles from the Mexican city of Tecate. The race road parallels the freeway. Its about 2 miles long, with a couple of tight hairpins.

Friday, October 26

Today was practice day. Life was pretty mellow, as most of the riders were arriving and setting up throughout the morning. Chaput arrived early to bring out his plethora of toys. Rogers Bros showed up and busted out a sweet looking banner. There was even a forest of pull handles under the finish line tent.

Dave and Darren brought new pegless luges. Dave's was a modification of the Rogers Bros luge. Darren's was similar to his last pegless luge. Although he was running special Moe trucks that allowed him to put four wheels on a single truck. Mason may even be thinking of going pegless!

Practice finally got under way. We used Marcus' truck, pulling a trailer, and Andy Lally donated his rented minivan. With approximately 30 riders in all disciplines, including bikes, I was expecting this to be a problem. But we got about a dozen riders in each vehicle, and the vehicles ran constantly. Because the vehicles could take us to the top via the highway, there wasn't much waiting at the top. Towards the end of the day Chaput went down hard and broke his arm or hand.

Many of the racers stayed either at the race site, or at the nearby RV park. I decided to stay in a hotel in San Diego, the 45 minute commute is a bit far.

Saturday, October 27

Today was qualifying day. Riders meeting was fairly short. But some guys busted out the chairs anyways. Sherm showed up late last night, even though he had a broken arm! He took quite a few pictures, you may want to visit his site.

I've always loved the pit areas, they are fairly colorful. With boards, leathers, and sponsor banners. Ozman had his pit set across from the food vendor, where everyone could see it.

During practice, the chase vehicles would go to the top whenever they were full. But today, they wanted to send all of one discipline up at once. Sometimes it got crowded.

There are a lot of weeds out at the course. Some very near the course. I don't know how many times I whacked these weeds on the inside of the first turn. On the inside of another turn, the weeds were even thicker. Well apparently I wasn't the only one whacking these weeds.

Neil has been an incredible guy this year. He flew to the Ohio race to race, and ended up starting. He forwent racing at this race to start once again.

We had quite a large buttboard contingent. This year we qualified in the daylight. Somehow its just not the same.

Qualifying was going fairly slow, as we only had one person on the course at a time. We ran out of time and decided to get a couple of practice runs in, instead of qualifying luge. It looks like no one wanted to miss a practice run. It gets dark pretty quickly this time of year.

Sunday, October 28

Since we didn't qualify yesterday we were going to qualify today. I got to the race site, jumped out of my van. Hit the button on the keys to open the back, tossed the keys into the car and shut the door. As the door slammed shut I realized that I had hit the lock button, instead of the door release button. I locked my leathers and luge into the van! And to make matters worse the trucks were heading out soon! I ran around trying to find a way into my car. Everyone said they could get in if they had a hanger, so I looked for a hanger. there here plenty of them, but they were plastic! There was even a locksmith on site! Turns out he only does house locks, and he didn't have his tools with him. Time was running out. Steve Pearl had extra equipment, so he loaned me a board and leathers! (Thanks Steve!) While Steve was getting me outfitted, Rahsad found a hanger and got my van unlocked. I got my leathers on, just in time to get on the van.

Something was wrong with Ozman's board. Apparently he wanted help in getting through the two right hand hairpins. So he put an 85 mm wheel on the left, and a 76 on the right! Yep, those are the mythical 85's.

Marcus figured out to run more than one rider on the course at a time. While it still took a while to run 25 riders, it was a lot faster than yesterday. Because we were leaving about every thirty seconds, we tried to line up early. Andy Lally was trying to apply speed suit from a can. I thought he was going to tape himself to the board!

Kent also came out to take photos. Kent has taken the best luge photos around. Check out his site.

IGSA introduced a new class "sport," which is essentially the amateur class. There were four entrants. The amateur's raced before lunch.

One of Barrett Junction's biggest drawbacks is its remoteness. American Civilization is about 45 minutes away. Although the cafe in Barrett Junction is quite good, its the only thing around. But this year we had catering on site! Some of the gravity bikers kept busy during lunch. 

The pro's raced after lunch. I was unable to get pictures of the Gravity Bikes and inliners, as I was practicing while they raced. But I did get some photo finishes.

Apparently, after the racing was over, and before the awards, there was time for some hijinks. Darren broke out with his new Cheese Nips leathers. Well, someone (I'm not sure who, probably someone who had plenty of time because they broke their hand in practice) decided to adorn Darren's pit.

Bob Ozman also ran the Johno Benefit Raffle. I think Eli won just about everything, at least enough pieces to build a new TVS board! Even though there was a Wizard deck, and a TVS deck up for grabs, the item everyone wanted was a blanket made by LugeMom herself!

For the US Nationals Marcus had some really nice glasses made. With the largest going to the street luge champion. It was getting dark, so my podium shots didn't really come out.

Sport Gravity Bike: Johnson, McIntyre, Waterhouse

Sport Street Luge: Kaplan, James, Toleman

Inline: Ladurner, Merkert, Peer

Standup: Smouse, Freeman, Conner

Buttboard: Dave Rogers, Ozman, Lott

Gravity Bike: Rodriguez, Garland, Brackens

Streetluge: Ruhman, McIntyre, Dave Rogers

Another race season was over (well I thought it was, there's going to be a race at WLAC in December) time to clean up. Neil does it all. Chris Chaput brought 72a and 75a version of his Flywheels. I picked up a case of each, and had to carry them home. They FILLED my carry on!