Cascade Cross Series
Cross Border Clash
Noember 5th


Cody Cupp

The third Cascade Cross series race course was so awesome! We raced through an industrial park in near Ferndale. There were two sand stretches on the course, a sometimes ride-able run-up, a technical single-track section through the woods, and a sweet pump track. The rest of the course consisted of fast grass straights with perfectly set up corners that you could really hit hard.
    
I raced in the top category for the first time in this race and definitely got worked pretty hard.  Right out of the start I got a bunch of grass jammed up in my cassette so I spent a good part of the first lap with my chain skipping around and popping all over the place. I lost a little time from this, but the grass eventually worked its way down deeper into the cassette so I was soon able to pedal hard again without worrying about the chain skipping through its gears. For the most part the pace of the first lap was surprisingly easy, but somehow by the time we came around for the second lap, everyone was going crazy fast and the top three guys pulled way ahead of everyone else.   
    
I ended up in the second group back and for a while we had three or four guys with us.  After a little bit they dropped off and one other racer and I got a pretty decent gap on everyone else. I sat behind the guy in front of me for a couple laps then moved out ahead of him to pull for a little while, thinking he would stay on me, but a gap quickly grew between us so I ended up spending a couple laps just trying to keep the gap in between us and stay out ahead of everyone. With a lap and a half to go someone who was in one of the further back groups made his way up to me and skipped out ahead. We both attacked hard on the last lap and I came into the final corner right on his wheel but wasn’t able to beat him on the sprint. I was still pretty satisfied with 4th place though considering that it was my first with the fastest guys.