Westwood Ski and Sports Club

2004 California Championship Series
Race #1 (Downhill and Slalom)
June 13, 2004
West Los Angeles College, California, USA
by Scott Peer and George Merkert

The weather was fair and temperate for competitors at West Los Angeles College for the start of the 2004 California Championship gravity racing series.  The downhill coursesetter set a course with the two sharp turns--a fairly sharp left hander leading to a very sharp right hander before the finish line.  The tough turns caused numerous slides, blowouts, and crashes, but no one was injured.

Roger Jennings (LA Speed Team) took first in the Downhill Skateboard event. The skateboard event used a points accumulation format. Each racer accumulated points based on their finish order in a heat. After three heats Roger and 17 year old skater Steven Wu had dueled to a tie. Roger, gentleman that he is, agreed to race another heat to break the tie even though the traditional means of settling a tie (reverting to qualifying times) would have favored him.  Not to be denied, LA Speed's finest skateboarder won the tie breaker and the race.

In inline downhill Scott Peer once again rolled onto the top step of the podium.  Defeated LA Speed teammate George Merkert was dejected that yet another of his strategies to best Peer at West LA College had fallen short of the mark. "I'm running out of ideas about how to beat that guy. The last four times we've raced I've tried to win four different ways. Nothing seems to work," he said, ruefully.  Warren Focke, back in racing form after his altercation with a car, took third.  Dave Lambert turned in a fourth place finish with a fine effort.  Mark Henley had a difficult day with only a single clean run in all his qualifying and racing heats (eliminating Frank Boyd in the process).  Taking an inside route through turn 2 in hope of passing Warren in his elimination heat Mark displaced a cone with his hand and was disqualified.

Tyler Wendtland showed continued improvement in his racing, winning both street luge and classic luge.  The youngest competitor of the day, Chase Orta (9 years old), displayed excellent racing form in classic luge and will be a racer to contend with in the future.

In gravity bikes Jason Madore took the fairing bike win, with Dave Kessler taking the stock bike win in dual elimination racing.

In the tight slalom it was yet another Richy Carrasco win.  Afterwards the racers put together an informal giant slalom race (with John O'Shei posting the fastest time).

Special thanks go out to our new sponsor for the gravity bike awards, Dr. No Racing, as well as returning sponsors Pure Guts and Kryptonics wheels.  Also, many thanks are due to IGSA (Marcus and Bob) for the huge effort needed to make the race such a fun and safe event.

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