Ex-Dragon Downhill honcho and international track builder Jason Carpenter and his daughter Manon (superfast up and coming rider) are out in Whistler, racing Cranky. Here is the first of their reports.

Had a fun couple of days so far.

Got here on Friday and did a couple of runs of the Garbanzo track to scope it out plus a couple of runs down Dirt Merchant and A line to get our jumping skills sharpened a bit. We were both a bit rusty after 2 weeks of beach holidays prior to the trip. I was a bit wobbly but neither A line nor Dirt Merchant were a problem for Manon. At 5pm there was three hours of practice on the Dual track. What a track! Mint, was short and tight. All the jumps were rollers BMX style, but were a bit deep for effective manualling so jumping everything was the order of the day.

The track

Off the start hill, 3m of steep slope straght into a tight bowl then up into a step up step down which landed straght into into two rh berms (inside and outside), so it was one pedal stroke, pump, jump, pump, jump, turn. Was cool. You railed the berm then stepped down a double into two LH berms. The inside one was soooo tight. Out of these straight into a double then a step up onto a deck and a 5 foot drop off WATER JUMP to LH off camber landing, the water with rubber duckies to boot!!! There were narrow wooden ramps on both sides of the gap as a chicken line, some used the RH one as a race line to get a better line into the LH off camber.

Photo:Yorick Carroux, www.carroux.com

Manons misfortune

Manon had the misfortune to be the first person to cock it up and ended up swimming, very embarassed she was too!! She felt a bit better the next day went we watched Duncan Riffle go for a swim too. She got a proper wallop too and took a chunk out of the chin guard of her brand new carbon 661 lid (sorry Des). I was a bit grumpy as she didn’t have a plan or any idea what to do or where she was going on it, it was nearly game over as she bashed her ribs a bit too. However she got it together and got the track dialled for racing.

Back to the Track

Land the water jump drop off to flat lh of camber landing, drift into a mellow long triple, many ways through this, Brendog was the first to triple it then blew out of the next berm he was going so fast. Triple ended up straight into two rh berms, then step down double out into a tight slightly hipped triple, best thing to do was triple it, easy on the left not so easy on the right. This triple landed into two lh berms with the inside one being sooo tight. Out of the berms into quite a big roller (this is what Sam Hill crashed into) The roller made the next loose rh corner a bit blind so it was hard to see the all important flags (don’t cut the flags or you get dq’d). Over the roller, cut wide left the switch right to bunny hop a tight little quad (or four stutter bumps). Top riders cleared them the others just jumped as far as poss. then bumped the rest.
Out of the quad into a few metres of downhill then into a real fun 8 pack double, double to deck, double off the deck to another double. Out of the eight pack switch left a bit, don’t miss the flags and into a nipple (a triple with a tall middle roller) manual up, pump down or jump to manual lander or jump it all, loads of ways over this baby. Out of the nipple into two left berms with a jump exit over a gap, landing into two right berms. One more double then a step up onto a deck with a step down with a double landing. Some top riders were just jumping the whole thing! Then you skidded to a finish in a cloud of dust. Brilliant fun.

I got through to the B final of the masters then got beat, so 4th for me. Manon only got the track dialled during seeding so seeded last and drew Olympic bronce medallist Jill Kintner (who went on to win against Ffion) Needles to say she went out first round. But she rode the track well and didn’t look out of place. Rich Jones aka Bobalong made the B final in the seniors but crashed out hard after the nipple so 4th for him too. Bernard Kerr made the final in the Juniors but blew a berm (not quite sure) so 2nd for him.

You can find the other results somewhere else I’m sure.

Monster Energy Garbanzo DH today, and we are knackered and aching already.

Look out for Day 2

Jason and Manon

Crankworx Dual Slalom pt 2