A good way for NORBA and USA Cycling to get around the money problems is to set up some sort of local race circuit. If you look at the way BMX does it, the racks for the most part are tracks that are up year round, ridden year round, and maintained year round. The best tracks are selected to hold the Nationals. If something like that was going on, people with out the money to go to all the nationals could still race. NORBA could set up a points system
for racing at local races as incentive. Then the best courses could be selected for the national circuit. That way, NORBA doesn't have to spend the money to build the course, the courses would be good and everyone would be stoked on racing again.

Another thing that NORBA needs to do is stop building the courses for the beginners. It makes the race boring to watch and not fun to ride. I'm not saying design the course around the Pros because then not everyone would be able to ride it. The courses should be built around the Expert class. That means that there are big jumps, big berms, and course you could carry some speed on. They should have long straights to allow for passing and there should be rhythm sections. The course should be at least some what down hill instead of having three up hill straights like that piece of shit in Salt Lake City. No one wants to go uphill.

Think about it this way: people are really never complaining about the downhill courses. I don't race DH, but my point is solid because I never hear my DH friends bitch about course like Durango. They are always fun to ride and fun to race. And do you know why? Those courses are there year round and are ridden semi year round, due to snow, meaning they are maintained half of the time. Then when it comes time for the NORBA crew to come through, all that they have to do is put up some tape and everyone is happy. I think it would take only one year of investing dough into the mountain cross and slalom events before the courses get to the needed level. That's it. After that, all that has to be done is a little bit of maintenance. After word spreads about all of the good courses, more people are going to get stoked about racing. That means that NORBA gets more money, which in turn means better courses returning us to my original point. Break the cycle NORBA and get paid.  I could keep going but I think you get the point. I'll leave you with this: NORBA is fucking up and is starting to realize it. I think it really hit them when some of the biggest teams and most well known riders decided to boycott the NORBA series. Some of the most influential riders turned their backs and NORBA is slowly starting work its way back up to what it should be. At this rate, it will be where I want it to be in about 15 years. I’ll bet some new racing
organization emerges and does what NORBA will not. NORBA will disappear.
The rant ends.

Alright, I was talking about the 4x. Qualifying went off really well for most of us. Ryan Condrashoff really wanted to be the first person down the hill so that he could leave to celebrate his birthday. The gate dropped and the guy running the clock forgot to start it. So Ryan was bummed, but his second run was better so in the end things worked out. Ryan qualified 5th I think, Lars was 7th, I was 10th, Mikey was 15th. Those were all of my close friends, so that's all that I remember.

After qualifying, a huge crew of people headed out to 101. There were only about 15 of us riding, but there had to be close to 40 people out there watching and hanging out. I'd say the session out at 101 was more fun than the race itself. It was more like everyone was having fun and not dreading being at the races. It brought the general “stoke” level of everyone up from the weekend before. It made me really want to ride instead of quite which was
what I felt like doing after Deer Valley. It eventually got too dark to ride, so we packed up and headed to Safeway to buy some stuff for a BBQ, you know, like meat and beer. After that, we went back to my house and started everything up. We picked up a few more people that need a place to stay so my house was even more packed.

The next day, no one had to do anything until late in the day. So we all just hung out at my house and watched TV while resting up for the 4x final. Practice went smoothly. I felt like I was riding well and I was ready for my first round heat. My competition was going to be Rich Houseman, Lars Sternberg, and Mike Haderer. I had 3rd gate pick after Houseman and Lars so in practice I figured that I would be in gate three. I made sure to get gates with everyone in my first round to see what I would have to do and I was beating those guys into the first turn.

When the finals stated, I was trying to figure out what I should do in the first turn. When my race came up I was watching Rich and Lars to see what gates they were going to take. Houseman took gate 2 which  threw me off a bit but I figured that I would still be in gate three. Then Lars took gate three. My heart started pounding. These guys were making some big mistakes. I was going to do everything in my power to fuck them all up, even though two of them were really close friends. I loaded the gate with my front tire as far right on the gate as possible and my back tire as
far left as possible. Houseman looked over seeing that I was pointed right at him and would run into him right out of the gate without even having to turn my bars. Seeing him react to that got my heart going even more. I was so jacked up on adrenaline my hands were shaking. My start was great. I was out of the gate before Houseman even moved. I got about a quarter crank in and then my bike started ghost shifting. I didn't know what was going on. Everyone pedaled right past me. I started to pump the first double and dive through the first turn. I starting pedaling hard out of the exit but my bike continued to malfunction. Somehow I managed to close the gap. They went outside for the second turn so that they could come out with a bunch of speed. I dove inside going for the fuck you pass and body checked Mikey
hard. I guess he put is foot down and rolled it and then I ran over it making it worse. I started pumping again but Lars and Houseman were just pulling away from me. It turned out that I snapped my cassette and that was why I couldn’t pedal.

Coming through the last straight I got sloppy and set my front wheel down a little bit too early manualing from a roller to a step up and got pushed onto the bars. My front wheel had too much weight on it to make it over the top of the step up and I got catapulted over the bars. I saw the
last roller of the rhythm section and didn't want to go face first into it so I tucked. I saw the sky and then braced for impact. I landed on the top of the next roller on my lower back and ass. I did the self check thing: I can see, I know where I am,  I  can move my arms, I can wiggle my toes, my ass is killing me, but I think I'm alright. Mikey rode by and asked, "You alright Powers?" I said yes and started to roll over to get up. That’s when the EMTs got to me and started yelling "Lay on your back!" I did and they
checked me out.

I saw a bunch of my friends popping up over the EMTs and snapping pictures. I saw Jason Van Horn pop up and I started to laugh. I saw Forrest come running up and push the EMTs out of the way and said, "Drew man, are you alright?" I said yes and he replied, "That was the gnarliest
fucking thing I have ever seen in my life!" Everyone laughed. I stayed down for a little while and then got up with the help of three of the EMTs. They helped me off the course where my friends were waiting for me. I remember Heath Sherat waiting there, looking the most worried out of everyone. His
face totally changed when I shot him a smile. I sat down for a little while, and caught my breath. One more race in the books.

05.25.06

So since I’m such a slacker, I had no plan of how to get down to the race. It was Tuesday and the race started Thursday, so I started to call around. I put in a call to Ryan Condrashoff to see what was up with the Planet X RV. Last season we took the yellow bus to a lot of the races. But all I got was an answering machine and I had no time to wait around for a call back. I called Mike Haderer to see what his plan was. We went to the Santa Clara PAL BMX track to get a little gate practice before the race. We set up our plan.

At 3:00 I would leave work and drive to his house. We would leave his house at 4:30 and get to Fontana at around 11:30. I got to his house at 4:00. We left his house at 5:30, had to sop to get gas and wait in the longest line of cars that I have ever been in. It took us a good 30 minutes to finally get to a pump. But after that we were set and on our way to the race.I’d say I was awake for the first thirty minutes, and then was out. At some point down I-5, I woke up and then was on the hunt for food. We spied a Taco Bell. It was on. My weapon of choice was a number 9 and a baja beef chalupa. Mike got something around the same. For the next, Id say, 2 or 3 hours, the van was toxic. We were dropping gas bombs left and right, trying our hardest
to stink the other one out. Let me tell you this, in this game, there are no winners. It finally got to the point where we had to turn the air back on, roll all the windows down, and when ever we had to cut one, we had to hang our asses out the windows to prevent any lightheadedness.

We got to the hotel around 1:30 and started to unpack all of our stuff. We wheeled our bikes and bags up to our room and then decided to go look for something to do. We got back in the van and started to drive around. Our mission didn’t get very far. We went to a gas station that was only down the street. We could still see out hotel, but we were getting tired so we bought some chips, a hot pocket and some other things…

On our way back to the hotel, we found some big mulch piles. We drove into one; Mikey got out of the van and attempted a standing back flip. He landed on his forehead. We went back to the hotel and went to sleep. For some reason, Mikey wanted to practice downhill in the morning and woke me up by farting in my face. It was mire that his leg hit the bed and shook me and that woke me up. His fart just didn’t have the amplitude to do the job. We grabbed our bikes and went to the track. Now, for those of you who have never been to Fontana, there really isn’t much to it. The track, well it’s in a public park. Mike headed off to the fox booth and I went cruising around to check out the place. I found the Planet X bus, Kyler Geraci, and Dan "The Man" (Dan Umland). Now let me tell you a little bit about Dan the Man. I promised him that I would expose him for the pussy he is at ever chance I got, and since I have this wonderful outlet, I figure I should put it to use.

Another nickname besides Dan the Man is The 15 year old lady killer. I don’t think that I have to go into much detail about how that nickname came around, so use your imagination. He came to a Slalom race at our local place, Sand Hill. He had been telling me how he was such a great slalom racer and how he was gong to win without a problem. So if you haven’t heard of the place, there is a bunch of talent that races out there. After qualifying, it showed Dan the Man in last place and not even qualifying for the race. So out of the kindness of their hearts, they down graded him to 19-24 expert, where he still wasn’t even first. What did he do? Hew backed out of racing completely. Why? His words exactly were: “I’m scared to race them. I don’t want to get beat by a bunch of 19-24 experts.” True story. I hope you like this Dan.Anyway, back to Fontana.

I had practice around 4 or so, so I had to put m
front brake back on, and switch out my skatepark tires to my race tires. I headed up to the mountain cross course with Kyler to watch Amateur practice. We got some lunch and then headed back up to for our practice. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a good course, but it was actually pretty fun to ride. It was a fast course which I really liked and there were no flat turns which made me really happy. After practice, we packed up and hooked up with the Adams brothers to go celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Not too far away from our hotel was a Chevy’s, so we went there. When we walked in, all the waitresses seemed to be pretty good looking. But when we sat down, we got the one fat and ugly girl in the entire place. We were pretty bummed. The food was good though, so all was not a lose. And being what day it was a celebration was in order, even if there were only a few of us. It was funny; the gas station was almost out of beer, so we made do with what they had.The next day was qualifying for us and the race for the ams. I was up on the course with Ryan Condrashoff and Joey Backus heckling like we normally do, trying to get people to “jump the double!”

So my qualifying run sucked. I never got clipped in in the gate. I loaded in.They said riders ready? I said no. They said seven seconds. I stood up and said I’m still not ready. The gate dropped and my front foot came of the pedal on the up stroke. I had a good run once I got clipped in, which wasn’t until the first turn. I qualified 31st and they were only taking 32. I was so pissed off. So the next day we showed up for the race and I was ready to FSU. I figured because of my horrible qualifying position, I would have last
gate pick each round, so I would have to fight to get into a qualifying spot to the next round.

My first gate was Cody warren, Sean “The Grizz”
McClendon, Garitt Beytagh, and myself. When the gate dropped, I started to slam over to the left trying to pinch out as many people as possible. Going into the first turn, Cody cut inside early, Geritt cut inside him, and I did
too. I got a pedal in and turned up the berm into Cody pushing him over. Then I turned down the berm looking for someone else to hit. Geritt had managed to pull ahead just enough so that when I ran into him, I started to
fall instead of him. I had to unclip and dab a foot on the ground. I got myself back upright and clipped in and started to pedal. I was in second, but because I was moving a little slow and pushing a really hard gear, The Grizz, who hung back a bit, had an open lane and a head of steam up and
passed me on the second straight. The track was only 25 seconds long and I didn’t have enough time to run him down. So it was back to the top to watch
and heckle with Ryan Condrashoff who also didn’t make it out of first round.

After the race we went out to dinner and a small get together at some hotel down the highway a few miles. We went and hung out with Kyler, Backus, Jason Halverson, and Greg Watts in a hot tub and a 24 pack. Around midnight, security finally came by and kicked us out for making too much noise. Mikey and I went back to our place to go to sleep.The next day was downhill. I wasn’t racing it so I just hung out with all of my friends that were done racing. When Downhill was done, we started to
pack up the van so we could head home. We heard on the PA system that we had won a KHS bike in a raffle, so I went to go collect. We packed the new bike up with everything else and headed for home. But before we did, we made a
phone call to a very special person, Derrek Horn, to tell him that we had a gift for him when we got back. Again, half an hour into the trip, I was asleep again. At some point on I-5 we stopped for more Taco Bell and the
battle began…