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The Chris Davidson diary
Chris Davidson is a former mechanic for Bontrager Racing Service, now in the service of Shimano Multi-Service.
Chris' diary entries will show you what life is like inside the pits and an insight into the mind of a mechanic.
NORBA NCS Series #2, Sonoma, CA, USA, May 14-16, 2004
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Day 0 - Thursday, May 13: A slow day in the California sunshine
Hi everyone,
CD here from Sonoma, California at the second NORBA event of 2004. It has been a while since we convened for NORBA #1 [2 months since Waco, but seems like last year], and the landscape here is Sonoma is vastly different than in Texas. The venue here is an auto race track; there is a road course that spans the hills and a drag strip down the center. This is strange in that normally the NORBA circus is the biggest thing going at a ski area, but here, we are a small diversion compared to the mass of competitors, equipment and fans that show up to see car racing. Today there were some race cars practicing on the road course, making far more of an impression than the bike racers on the newly cut XC course. The XC course here is shorter than usual, maybe 4-5 miles, and a good deal of it is freshly cut. Not many pros were super excited about the course layout; however a number mentioned the inclusion of a few short, very steep climbs on the course as pivotal.
The weather here was awesome today, 70s and sunny. No racing on the schedule for Thursday, so we had a slow day in the tent. At this venue there are no downhill or SuperD events, so there were a limited number of gravity racers practicing today. Mostly today involved catching up with others and getting ready for the weekend. A number of people stopped by the Shimano trailer today, with a number of cool bikes. First up was Wade Bootes with a custom 'Project One' Trek dual suspension bike that need to help with the brake rotors, he wanted to switch from 8" discs to 6" ones. Crazy paint job. Next we saw Travis Brown's 9.8 hardtail, and I am going to have to do some checking on this, but the frame material may not be the 120 carbon fiber from last year. More on that tomorrow.
Monkey, the mechanic for Maxxis dropped by with his companion, Moto. Moto is pretty famous in the tech area. Today Moto was all about this plastic hot dog that Monkey had. Check that photo, all those wet spots on the ground are dog drool.
The Rocky Mountain Team had a rough time on the trip down to Waco for race #1. Their team trailer ended up not making it to Waco, so we in the Shimano camp helped them out for NORBA #1. The trailer made it to Sonoma this weekend, but needed some serious work to become roadworthy again. From this looks of the side, it suffered some serious damage back in March.
More from the race track tomorrow, thanks for reading.
CD