This week was pretty crazy. I raced the Pan American Continental Championships in Puebla, Mexico. It turned out to be a really fun event and a great experience, even though it was a little disorganized. From the beginning, Mexico lived up to it's stereotypical reputation. The organizers who were supposed to pick us up from the airport never showed up, leaving us to find our own way to the event. We rented a van and managed to find the venue, about 100km away, just by asking directions... kinda sketchy. I guess they don't sell maps in Mexico. The traffic was insane, no rules what so ever. There were no speed limits, just speed bumps, so you couldn't speed if you wanted to. Dead dogs in the hotel parking lot, 5 people riding on 1 motorcycle, and chickens on the race track were all common place. It was quite the experience!
I wanted to race the Pan American Championships to get some more racing in early in the season and it turned out that this track was a great place to train. The track was really short, but there were a lot of line options which made it really fun and challenging. Some big, dangerous lines out there too, which were worthwhile on such a short track. There were no shuttles for the DH, so we had to hitch hike back to the top of the track after each run. It was dry, hot and dusty the whole time. In the final I put down a very strong run, a run I was really happy with, but Marcelo Gutierrez managed to go faster and I finished 2nd to him. I had a really fun week in Mexico with the US federation. Experiencing a country like that is something I'll never forget. It was so cool to see that all the south american guys were so pumped on the sport. There are a lot of great guys down there that the we rarely ever see. I'm headed home now for a little while and I'm looking forward to it!
NM
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