I was excited to go back to Fernie for the BC Cup finals. Fernie is where I spent a lot of time when I was younger, so I have good memories. I also knew that the track would be pretty fun.

It started out with some rough corners, then straight into some really steep loose switchbacks, then out to some really fast sections in and out of the trees to the finish.  My first few runs were really good because the catch berms were still holding up. As more and more people began to ride it on Friday, ruts started to form, which wasn’t a bad thing. Unfortunately, on Saturday when the majority of the riders showed up, the ruts started to take you off track. It got looser and much harder to ride.

The weather forecast said rain on Saturday and Sunday, so I was surprised when it didn’t rain at all on Saturday. I would have been alright with it raining because the course was so dry and dusty. Little did I know how much rain would fall on Sunday…

Sunday morning practice was dry for the first run, then it began to rain for the second run. The course hadn’t changed at all, so I didn’t think it was such a bad thing. When race time came, it was pouring and freezing cold. I crashed three different times on my race run at the top and wasn’t really feeling confident to really go for it in the bottom. I ended up third.

It wasn’t a question of “did you crash?” it was “how many times did you crash?”