Woodland Park MFG # 6
Cody Cupp
11-13-11

    




I finally won!  I have been working all season to get a win in a big cross race and I choose the perfect one to finally do it. Until now I always seemed to have something go wrong every race and keep me out of that top spot, but in Woodland Park things just seemed to go my way. I knew it was going to be a good day as soon as I got there. There was a huge crowd and tons of people with very few parking spaces near there course but we lucked out and managed to get one of the closest spots there. I would also like to give a big thank you to Blue Star Coffee! They got my entry fees taken care of and that has been great. As I registered, changed into skin suit and prepared to warm up, I felt great. I was super confident and just knew that it was going to be my day. 

    The course was definitely the best MFG course of the year. All of the turns were super slick and fun and the straights were really fast and gave you a chance to really put a hard effort in and make yourself hurt. There was also a well placed set of barriers and a stair run up that led to a sometimes rideable run up with a log at the top to bunny hop. The course was pretty much perfect for me. The technical turns gave me a chance to put my mountain skills to the test and the numerous climbs gave me a chance to really put my legs to work.
    To start the race, I shot out to the front and managed to get a big lead quickly. I kept my big gap for almost two laps out and set what I thought was a pretty hard pace. I had a group of seven chasing me but three of them eventually broke off and caught me. We quickly dropped one of them and with about three laps left in the race I, along with guy who came in second, started to pull away from the one left in my group. Once we got a ways away from him I, of course, messed up trying to bunny hop the log on the run up, tripped while trying to recover myself, lost a lot of time, and ended up back with the guy we had just dropped. I had to spend the last two and a half laps trying to catch back on to the leader and just worked myself over in the process. For a while I didn’t think I even had a chance of getting him but as we came in closer to starting on the last lap he was getting closer and closer. I finally caught back onto him right after we started into the last lap and about a third of the way in I skipped around him on the barrier set then pulled away on the run up and just kept sprinting out of every corner and up every hill until I finally, victoriously, crossed the finish line.