2014 Season Review - Andrew Golabek

2014 proved to have both slow, and fast results but in the end I was the Ontario Cup overall winner, and Ontario champion. So overall an amazing season! I started riding downhill two years ago on a hardtail with Kenda Nevegals, after I saw some of the local riders hitting some jumps, and drops. I thought to myself, "Wow I would like to learn how to do that", subsequently I started watching the DH World Cup events, and this is basically what led me to racing downhill. The very next year I raced the Ontario Cup series, and took 2nd overall in the cadet category. This year I'm on Silent Norco Race Team. 2014 was a great year for progression as rider, and as an athlete.


The first event of the 2014 season was also my first Canada Cup race, at Mont Tremblant in Quebec. This race turned out to be the most muddy, cold, and wet one I have ever been to, unfortunately I crashed a couple of times during my race, which led to a poor result. However the race was definitely a good experience. Next up was the first race in the 2014 Ontario Cup, hosted by Tufrack, at Horseshoe Valley, The track was the same as it was in 2013. It's a fun track with berms, a tight dark section in the trees, and some rocks, I think most people enjoyed this course a lot, I certainly did. This race went well, and I came away with the win for Silent Norco Racing in the Junior Expert category.


Photo thanks to Marc Landry photography!

1st place Junior Expert

The East Coast Open was my next race, it was located at Blue Mountain. I decided to race in the open/pro category. This track was very fun to race on. I finished 20th in that category, if I had chosen to race my age group I would have gotten first by about 8 seconds.

The next Ontario Cup race was at Camp Fortune in Quebec, the track was loose and dry, unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me so there are no photos or videos. We traveled to Windham New York to watch the World Cup race, which was pretty awesome, I met some world cup racers and I was able to walk the track and visualize racing there one day! Since we were there, and I had my bikes, I decided to raced in the Eastern States Cup race just for entertainment. I heard the track was pretty technical so I took it easy during practice, I was a little bit shocked at myself for doing so well.


2nd place just having fun.

The third Ontario Cup was located at Horseshoe Valley, the track was pretty short, only about 1 minute long, but it was still fun.


My team at this race



1st place Junior Expert

Then the last Ontario Cup of the year at Sir Sams, same track as the year before. Conditions were mint, and this track is moderately high speed. I got 1st place, and took the overall first place with 100 points from each race.


Thank to all my sponsors, Norco, One Industries, Silent Sports, and my team Silent Norco racing.

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