Euro Tour

[ChrisMcB]

I've been requested to make some posts about the Euro Trip. Kolby has been doing writeups and having them posted to igsaworldcup.com. I've been making blog posts about my time between racing on chrismcb.com, with my writeups going up soon after I return home.

In the meantime... I've been travelling with Bob and Marcus and Furlong. We got to Graveyard call after travelling for 12 hours. But we got to spend the day in Ulm, and watched them celebrate, what is essentially their independence day.

Almabtrieb went off well... But it was HOT very HOT and HUMID. It rained a couple of times and night, and even rained a tad during the first day of qualifying.

Pete Eliot beat all other lugers for the top qualifying spot by several seconds. But a collision with another rider at the top kept him off the top spot in the podium, and allowed Luca to beat him.

Serek was up to his dominating ways as usual. He actually had the second fastest time on the hill, only a half second faster than Pete's luge time! And Serek went on to win classic.

[stevefernando]

Thanks Chris, as always I look forward to seeing your posts an pics... have fun buddy!

[ChrisMcB]

Today was supposed to be the first day of qualifying for everyone. Just before standup finished, there were about a half dozen left, it started to rain. It was decided to cancel qualifying!

Problem is it is supposed to rain again tomorrow. There is a discussion of pea picking if luge doesn't get to qualify.

[ChrisMcB]

Its been a crazy couple of days. We sat at the top for several hours yesterday, waiting for standup to finish. They got to the end of the standup and it started to rain. Then cancelled the rest of qualifying.

Today it was raining in the morning, and finally they decided luge and buttboard would qualify at 2:00pm rain or shine. The rain stopped during lunch, so when it was time to qualify the course was mostly dry. Towards the end of the first round of luge, it started to rain again. Just enough to wet part of the course. A few lugers were given a rerun, then classic went. The course was mostly dry when we did our second luge run. But just as we lined up for our second classic run it started to pour. A few of us were ready to give it a go (even though it wouldn't really count as it wouldn't be faster than the dry) when the organizers cancelled the qualifications.

Now they will try to do the second round of standup qualification in the morning, then run the race.

Yvone set down some fairly fast times in both luge and buttboard. Will Stephenson had the #2 qualifying time. Bob Bouchard came to the party late, missed the first day of practice, got one warm up run yesterday, one today, and on his second run had the #6 time. I had a really good run for my first run, but didn't dive hard enough into the last corner, and planted my board under the hay bales. My second run was good, but not quite as great.

We'll see how racing goes

[Big Steve]

Race hard Chris but bring everything home in one piece. Keep the posts coming.

[ChrisMcB]

Today was a long day. Due to rain the past two days, they finished up standup qualifying, AND then we raced.

Standup had some good guys get dropped in the first round, like Mischo and Scoot.
I think street luge went on to a more expected finish. Yvonne beat Kevin in the final, and Will Stephenson beat Greg after Greg was DQed.
I literally got knocked out when I was TBoned in the first turn, and then later on tried to overtake the other guy and he tried to bump me off the course again.

Buttboard had Serek and Yvonne dive into the same spot trying to apex the final corner, sending Serek into the hay. Yvonne actually stopped, and waited for Serek to cross the line first.

Now I'm off to Italy.

[tiki alex]

can`t wait to see you there! till friday!

[ChrisMcB]

I'm trying to update my site, but it seems a bit slow.
After Graveyard Call we went to Rome and Pompeii. Rome is cool, but Pompeii is something else. Definitely something worth seeing.

We just finished the race here in Teolo. I'm sitting outside the hotel in the nice cool weather. Many people have already left (with it being Sunday, they are trying to head home I guess.)

It was apparently raining on Thursday, and the start on Friday was postponed due to fog. I skipped a few runs because the track was just too wet. The rest of the weekend was great. Sunny, and not too warm (much cooler than the previous two races)

Serek once again dominated in buttboard. I got to race with him a couple of times, and he is just a machine off the start. While I sort of kept up with him, it was more like me watching him go around the turn. And then when I got to the turn, I saw him disappear around the next turn. Yvonne narrowly beat out Kevin. Personally I had bad starts and ended up last in the consi for 12th place finish.

In Luge I had a difficult time, and was unable to come close to approaching last years success. I ended up scrubbing HARD in one of the turns. Not enough to knock me out of the race, but enough that I had to make a last ditch effort through the last corner, and I ended up in the hay. I don't think I finished in last place, but it was pretty close!

Eliot got squeezed out at the start in the finals, but some how made it through the carnage and headed down the straight in first place. He finished the heat unchallenged. Yvonne took a distant third, with Cedric taking second.

Marcus and I are headed to Zurich next, looks like we will be seeing the film Drop. And then we are on to Insul.

[ChrisMcB]

We left Insul this afternoon. The course was a lot of fun. It was a series of straights ending in banked hairpins. The course was supposed to be slow, but it was fast enough that you want to brake for each hairpin.
We spent Friday practicing, getting in tons of runs.
Then Saturday morning we ran both buttboard and street luge qualifying. The afternoon was standup qualifying, except forecast called for rain on Sunday. So they decided to run the standup race Sat afternoon!
We got up this morning to a soaked track and light drizzle. Many of us were heading to kozakov next and we didn't want to pack up soaking leathers. Then I drove the course and noticed that the entrance to all of the hairpins were completely unprotected (which is fine for a dry course, but not a wet one) We all voted and decided not to race. Qualifying times stood.

On to the next race!

[ChrisMcB]

We are here in beautiful Czech at the Kozakov Challenge.
The first day we got a ton of runs in. I think I took a dozen or so, and I missed several as I took a nice long lunch (we didn't officially break for lunch)
The weather was beautiful, but forecast for today was rain. So we ran all of the qualification yesterday. For some reason I am braking heaps, and finished in the middle of the back for luge, and towards the bottom for buttboard.
But today we got rained out. The organizers felt the course was just not safe for the rain. Every time the course starting drying, it rained again. The weather for tomorrow afternoon is supposed to be good (although it is supposed to rain in the morning.) So we'll see what happens.

[ChrisMcB]

Kozakov got fogged out today. The weather forecast was for rain in the morning, and sun with clouds in the afternoon. Well we had our heads in the clouds all day, and couldn't see more than about 25 feet. Of course as soon as we had the awards ceremony (about 4) the fog finally burned off.

Serek won his fifth race in the row, locking up the Classic World Cup title. Luca posts the fastest time on the hill, taking the luge crown.

The Euro Tour is officially over. Five races, four countries, five weeks. Three of the five races got rained on, with two basically getting rained out. I head home in a few days. I'll get my own website updated fairly quickly.

I'm heading up to the party, although it will be pretty mellow since most people left already. More Czech beer for me.

[Mr. Lang]

Bad to hear that another race was canceled due to the bad weather. It seems, that there is no longer a need for rain-wheels.
Thanks for posting. I hope you will be back in Europe next year!

[ChrisMcB]

They wanted to try and race Classic and Women and Junior standup on Friday. But the course was wet, then just as it dried, it POURED. I'm not sure why we didn't race though. Yeah the course was fast, but then so was Hot Heels.

But we didn't race on Saturday because of fog. I'm perfectly happy not racing in the fog... I like to see where I'm going.

[will]

http://www.vimeo.com/14372226

Awesome vid by nick for italy!

[Big Steve]

Great Video! The old school music was the best, though it wasn't old school back in the day. Was any of this race footage or all practice runs?