On 6/24/2008 Pat Chewning wrote in from United States (24.22.nnn.nnn) Just now recovering from a full weekend of racing action -- the 3rd Oregon State Games. 4 events over 2 days.
Paul Howard set the courses:
A pair of "mirrored" hybrid courses with a good mixed bag of offsets, stingers, angled lines, and curves. A 25 second course for the fast racers. The surprise top finisher was a very strong looking Tay Hunt who "hadn't been on a board in months". Sure Tay, whatever..... Skip Marcotte, Brad Jackman, and Corey Moy were also looking very good in this course.
An easy-yet-fast flowing single-lane GS course. John Stryker and Tay Hunt owned this course from the 1st beep. It was great to see these two powerful racers on a course where they could pump strong at high speeds.
Two tight straight courses. A 100-cone 6.5-foot course for the A-class and an 80-cone 8-foot course for the B class. The 6.5 foot spacing was too difficult for most of the racers. Only Gareth Roe, Pete Ingraham, and Judy Oyama actually looked comfortable and in control on this course. For most everyone else it took a bit of luck to make the course. Many competitors had wonderful 90-cone runs going. Too bad it was a 100-cone course. The 80-cone course was very doable for the experienced racers, but tripped up a lot of the new racers. Gareth Roe and Judy Oyama really put on a good show for us.
A slalomcross course using the Hybrid course as a starting point, removing the center 1/2 of the course and replacing it with 5 "open" gates for shared use by the racers. The racers would go through the upper 1/4 of the course in their individual lanes, then enter the common area of open gates where they would tuck or power-pump to try to pass the other racer. Then they would enter the final individual 1/4 of the course and go for the finish. John Ravitch qualified first, but had a plane to catch and dropped out before the Head-to-Head.
This race format was very popular with the racers. As far as I know Jack Smith was the first to try this format at the 2003? World Championships and Paul Howard took that concept and adapted it to the Salem Hill. The surprise winner was Jordan Huotari from Spokane Washington. Jordan started racing last year. He qualified 6th in the event, won each of the ladder-bracket rounds and finally displaced Tay Hunt out of the top spot on the very last race.
Yeah I was there...It was a good time, the hill was a little too mellow for my tastes, but I had fun racing with everyone. Wish I could have competed both days (The slalomcross looked really fun) but due to injury I only got to race one day. Oh well, plenty of more races to come!
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Originally Posted by roflsore
welcome to silverfish. bitch. can't take the heat, don't be such a pussy girl.
if anyone can post some pics of it, or post a link to pics of it that would be sweet. I am also looking for pics that WERE NOT in the newspaper, i already have one of them, thanks
Soap Box Derby, Salem, Oregon
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