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Zolar Santa Rosa Downhill Festival
Santa Rosa, CA
The downhill festival was put on by EDI took place in Santa Rosa, about an hour north of San Francisco, right in the heart of wine country. The two event featured both Street Luge and Downhill Skateboard. It was also the first of two qualifiers for the 99 Gravity Games.
The race took place on Fountain Grove Parkway. The section we raced on was a divided roadway. The right hand side was closed off, while traffic used the left side of the road. The course was fairly straight with a fairly nasty right near the bottom. This was a nasty turn as it start immediately after a bridge. There was a small bump when leaving the bridge. In addition at the end of the turn was a left turn lane. There was quite a number of road turtles to delineate the left turn lane. It was deemed that this portion was outside the race course, which made the turn even tighter. And to top it all off, the outside of the turn was a six foot high brick wall.
The pit area was more of a pit row. With between 40 and 50 cars in a single file line, and room in between for tents, the pit area stretched on for quite a while. This is a shot about a dozen cars from the end towards the starting line, about thirty cars past the lamp post.
Many riders like to spruce up there helmets a bit. Here's Bob Pereyra and Grumpy's skull cages.
I didn't get a whole lot of time to take pictures at this event. Being a racer doesn't make it easy to also take pictures of the event. After I got knocked out of the race by Lugenstein and Wild Tom, I took a few pictures.
I believe this was the lineup of the a semi final with Kurtis Head, Waldo, Lugenstein and Beagle.
I wonder if U-Haul knew how we used their trucks?
Travis Tripp demonstrates how important paddling can be as he paddles past Kurtis and Lugenstein, who have already laid down. He even catches up to Biker, who is in the process of laying down after paddling past Kurtis and Steiner.
After the luge race was over I helped work the course, and had an opportunity to take a few shots of standup. Lee Dansie:
Goerge Orton?
I'm not sure, but pan shots are hard.
Travis Tripp takes the gold, Biker on the right takes the silver, and Lugenstein takes the bronze in the luge race of the Zolar Downhill Festival.
