Race Report USA World Cup. By Caroline Buchanan

Apr 04, 2012

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 4972 times

Early last week the Australian BMX team flew to America for the first round of the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup of the year. The first stop we dropped into visit my sponsors at VSI Imports and picked up my new Speedco frame. I was a little worried on whether I would feel uncomfortable with only a few days on a new bike but It felt very similar to my old Intense frame just slightly stiffer... I love it :)

Second stop in the states was Chipotle for the best burritos

in the world I have been craving them for about 5 months now since I left the states last year. We drove down to Chula Vista San Diego near the boarder of Mexico where the Olympic Training Center is and the World Cup was held. Coming off a solid 5 months of training preparation leading into the season I was feeling on form and ready to race.

Friday I won the first time trial lap and progressed into the time trial super-final where I knew that I was the fastest girl around the track and was confident that I could better my time. I won the time trial superfinal in a time of 36.435 seconds which also broke the Chula Vista lap record held by American Brooke Crain.

Saturday's race day ran fairly smoothly I had a mechanical in the 3rd heat but had it fixed in time for the semi final. There were quite a lot of crashes with one male Dutch rider being airlifted out to hospital. Progressing through the semi final into the final I knew that it was going to be an action packed final. I came out of gate 5 with lots of elbows flying down the first straight, I held my own got caught up in the pack but fought all the way to the line coming across in 5th position with team mate Lauren Reynolds in 7th.

This weekends results ranks me 2nd in the World Cup standings and 4th in the overall UCI BMX World rankings. I am now headed to Europe for the next World Cup being held in Norway.

-Caroline Buchanan