Sunday River BX

This weekend is the Sunday River BX, otherwise known as the Rumble at the River. I realized today that I don't usually come up for the race but it never crossed my mind not to this year. I guess because it's Whitney's senior year and I want to get to as many races as I can (that make sense to get to).

I drove up to Maine on Thursday. The drive wasn't too bad, not too much traffic, and it took just about 12 hours on the dot. Friday was practice day so while it was an early morning to get to the mountain it wasn't too bad. We had time to swing by Java Joe's for coffee since neither Whitney nor her roommate drink coffee. She had a good practice, I hung out in the lodge and watched it snow. I was quite surprised when I went outside and we had gotten about 6" during the day. Whitney had a good practice day and got some help from a Gould coach she knows. She was feeling pretty confident when we left.

Saturday
We got to the mountain this morning and found out that the series directors' son, who was in a crash yesterday had a broken leg and was having surgery this morning. Thankfully we found out at awards his surgery went well and they're on their way home. Fortunately they have co-directors and the day went on mostly as scheduled. They had the usual course inspection, practice runs, riders meeting, time trials, then got on with racing. Whitney did really well in time trials and was over five seconds faster than the other open class rider.

When it came time to racing, Whitney did well and stayed on her feet. There was a moment of fear, she said, when she was airborne and her board was perpendicular to the slope and not heading down it. She managed to get things under control before she landed and was on her way. She finished in first, far enough ahead of the other rider to make her happy.

We hung out on the slope to watch a friend of hers from Massanutten race; he was up here for a bx camp at Gould. There was a bit of a tussle and riders were tumbling in front of us during the heat that had the open class men/jams men/jams women riders. On a not good note, a freeskier was hurt in the same area that the series directors' son was hurt yesterday. The skier goes to UMF but isn't on the freeski team this season so Whitney knows him. He was also taken down by ski patrol and straight to the hospital. From what we heard he's likely got a concussion, something wrong with his wrist and his hip. Hopefully he'll be ok, but I think it's likely a bad concussion. When he was asked if he had anyone there with him he said no, but thankfully the UMF coach was there and said his dad was there.

Tomorrow is another race day, hopefully one where no riders get hurt.