California Dreamin' 96 - 97

With frigid temp's approaching all I can do is reflect back upon warmer times. My first trip out to Cali was a quick weekend. I was living in MI back in 96, racing for the Devo Team, and flew in to Ontario, CA to do the Big Bear Norba. No camera, no pictures, results maybe around 22nd.

My first real stay in Cali was in 97 at the Cabin in Nevada City. It was pretty awesome. Derek Prechtl, Skyler and I loaded up the Caravan and hit the scene. From VT to Cali we did it all. Including this Norba in Mammoth where I again finished 22nd but this time in the Sr. Expert cat.

The stories from the cabin are endless but the best is the morning of the Deathstar at North Star training race in Tahoe. We went for a little cruise on the bikes to loosed up the legs in the morning. When we got back it was time to clean up. The Yuba River runs through the back yard of the cabin and it was daily ritual to go down for a swim after each ride.

The water was raging that day, but for some reason Derek Prechtl wanted extra lube on the rock slide to the pool at the bottom. As he is standing on the top of the slide with his bar of Irish Spring (it floats) in hand, lubing up the top of the slide he goes down. His feet got a little too slippery, he fell back and cracked his head on the rock. As he was sliding down the flume of water I watched his eyes roll back into his head with a look of blank death as he disappeared under the water. It was the first time, and hopefully last, I will ever have to hold another grown man naked, but when Skyler and I pulled him out from under the water and I inserted my finger an inch and a half into the back of Derek's head it was the last thing in my mind.

After he came back to life we walked him up to the cabin and did some old school doctoring....nothing a shower cap and a pack of ice couldn't fix up right?

It seemed to do the trick as Derek was lined up 4 hours later for the local training race in Tahoe.

He did complain of some wooziness after the race....something about the elevation...can anyone besides Skyler name the ultra fast pro in the black w/ yello jersey?

Stay tuned for the California Chronicles......