Switchbacks No.1 Recap

1st Billy Bones : 2nd Chip Wood : 3rd Alex Tongue : 4th Robin McGuirk

The Switchbacks event this Sunday was a huge success.  It has been 4 months since the last Switchbacks event in October, and I could tell that every was very excited to back into race mode.  37 riders competed in a double elimination format, meaning lots of riding and lots of fun for everyone.   A lot of new faces decided to join in, and a few others stuck around just to watch.  Racers from McMinnville, Corvallis, Vancouver, Seattle, and a few other towns made the journey to Portland to session with locals.  We were blessed with the presence of Tad from Seattle and first time downhill racer Chris Stevens(the man behind NW Shirts, the Vancouver Vixen, and the late Old School Skateboarding site).  It was definitely a collection of faces that I hadn’t since the fair weather days of last summer.

While it was fairly warm and dry out, the course was still quite saturated.  Fortunately the race format included unlimited kicking at the top, which kept the rain from slowing us down.   There was a huge dry patch leading into the second hairpin, making the right hander difficult to negotiate in a pack, and lead to a number of interesting bails throughout the day.

The first round had 9 heats with good breakup of veteran racers and newbies in each heat.  After the first round all 37 racers were still in, but the veterans were quickly separated into the Upper bracket.  The second round was split up into 10 heats, 5 lower and 5 upper heats.  The Upper bracket had a lot of action this round and some new faces started to make themselves known.  Addison Fox and Chip Wood move forward in the first heat, while Billy Bones decided that he would manual his way down into the lower bracket.  In the second heat Eric and Robin moved forward, making no surprises.  The third heat Brandon, and Alicia Fillback moved forward leaving Colby Loony and David Rudgers behind.  Ricky Mills and Julien Grenich-Young take the fourth heat, and Alex Tongue and Dan Thatcher took the Fifth.  Round four had three heats in the Upper bracket, and four in the lower.  Robin, Julien, Chip, Tongue, Brandon, and Ricky all move forward in the Upper bracket once again.  Two more rounds pass, dwindling down the lower bracket and leaving behind Tongue, Robin, Brandon, and Julien in the Upper Semi Finals.  Julien and Brandon are knock out of the Upper bracket and are forced to join the lower bracket to fight for the podium.  Brandon battles against Chip and Eric taking second to Chip, and knocking Eric out of the competition.  Julien goes up against Billy and Aidian, and take second to Billy eliminating Aidian.  The four are pitted against each other in the in the lower bracket semi-finals.  Chip and Billy prevail.  The finals came down to Robin, Tongue, Billy and Chip, which proved to be a tight match.  With a solid lead in the end Billy Bones becomes the first Champion of the 2011 Switchbacks Series defending his title from last season.

Here is a quick clip from the finals: