Friday's Short Track Cross Country race was all fun and games compared to Saturday's Elite Cross Country races. In the Women's race, it was the Luna Pro Team bringing the pain by utterly dominating the rest of the field. In the men's race, it was a 40-year-old Todd Wells claiming the title after an 8 lap bare knuckle brawl.
For most of the past decade, the Sea Otter XC race has been a two lap race, meaning the racers take two big, long laps into the backcountry of Fort Ord and the fans pretty much get a 30 second look at their favorite racers on lap one, and then they're gone for the second lap; fans really only get to see the start and the finish of the race. But this year the race organizers opted to change that by looping the XC course out onto the Laguna Seca race track, up behind the Dual Slalom track, and then across the face of the hill that holds the DS course. This new track was in clear view of all the fans and even allowed fans to migrate from point to point to follow the action leading up to the finish.
The Elite Women's XC race was first on the card today, and right from the start, the Luna team was driving the pace. By lap two, Luna was more of less in control, with Katerina Nash, Georgia Gould, and Catharine Pendrel all hovering in the front group, and Eva Lechner in the chase group. By the mid point of the 6 lap race, Luna had a strangle hold on the race, and in the finish, it was a three up Luna sprint for the win.
The Men's Elite XC race didn't see the same kind of Team domination that determined the outcome of the women's race, but the eight lap event saw a selection of five riders happen around the fifth lap. That front group would work hard to drive the pace and keep away from the rest of the bunch, and while they may not have been teammates, the three biggest guns came down the finishing stretch in a sprint finish every bit as exciting as the women's race.
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