Stratton, Again

I finally got to see my girl race today. I came up to NH yesterday for a quick weekend trip. Today she was at Stratton Mountain again for another boardercross race and tomorrow she's going to Mount Sunapee for a Giant Slalom race. I'm glad my sister-in-law lives in a good location so that Whitney can stay here when she wants to race in Vermont.

Today was a cold and windy day at Stratton. The races started mostly on time this morning. There were three racing in open class and surprisingly the largest group today was the 10-11 year old girls. Usually when we've been at races almost any of the boys groups are larger than the girls. It's not very often that I've seem them have to run heats for one of the girls groups.

One thing Whitney needs to work on, which she knows, is her racing during time trials. She doesn't do as well as she could. It's something she needs to work on since they use the time trails for seeding, which determines gate choice. Today she was third in time trials so had last gate choice.

After lunch they started the racing. The BX course is at Stratton is a short walk from the base of the mountain. That was nice so I didn't have to get a lift ticket for today. It's not really worth it to get a lift ticket, especially at a mountain that I don't know. Whitney is busy with race stuff that isn't exciting to watch until it's actual race time and I don't want to get a lift ticket to head down to watch one race. I don't like riding the mountain by myself if I've never been there before.

It was a nice walk up, although I could have done without the wind. I do love watching her races, the view from the mountain is always amazing. She was in heat 16 today so I had a chance to watch some of the other racers. There was a jump to a waterfall to the finish line. From where I was standing I couldn't see the finish line but I had a good view up the course so I was able to watch the racers coming and got some good video of Whitney as she came by.

She said she had the best start out of the gate but the other two girls had better lines. She was in third but around the second turn she was able to get ahead of one of the girls and they kept those positions until the finish. Whitney was happy with her finish, said it was a good race.

We drove home in the daylight, as opposed to this morning when it was still pretty dark, and the drive was quite lovely. Tomorrow it's off to Mount Sunapee and a new experience. She's ridden there quite a bit and knows the mountain but she's never raced in a New Hampshire series race and she's also never done GS before.