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Mountain States Cup finale hits Keystone

ANDY FRAMEsummit daily news
Summit Dailt/Kristin Skvorc Downhill racer #524 uses her leg to balance around a turn during the MTN states cup finale Saturday in Keystone.
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KEYSTONE – It was an electric day for the Watt family in Keystone. Husband and wife Jon and Bobbi Kae Watt each won the dual slalom pro, semi-pro division on Saturday at Keystone at the final Mountain States Cup event of the season. Bobbi Kae Watt easily advanced through every round, winning each race by the maximum amount, 1.5 seconds. But in the finals, the race wasn’t so close. After combining the two races, Watt won by only five-hundredths of a second.It was her fifth win of the year.”This was against much better competition,” Bobbi Kae Watt said.Jon Watt was sick all week leading up to Saturday’s race, but he didn’t have a problem repeatedly pushing his bike up the hill between runs and beating his counterparts back down the course.

“I’m so happy for him,” Bobbi Kae Watt said. “It’s so cool that we both won at the same time.”The dual slalom matches two racers against one another on a slim course that features banks, bumps and jumps. Each rider competes on both sides of the track, going for the lowest overall time. The dual slalom uses a bracket formula to determine the overall winner.In the men’s expert 30-and-over division, Summit Cove resident Matt Sutton won in his first attempt at a dual slalom race this year. Sutton had a slight advantage over the other riders, though. He works for the bike park at Keystone Resort and helped design and build the course he won on. “It probably helped,” Sutton said. “I rode it more than anyone here.”Before the race, Sutton wasn’t so sure he’d be able to hang with the season Mountain States Cup riders. “I didn’t know if I’d even qualify,” Sutton said. “Then I qualified first, so then I thought I could do it.”Sutton said he’d like to race the whole Mountain States Cup season series in 2006.

Other successful locals on Saturday included Silverthorne resident T.J. Fisker, who won the junior men’s expert division, and Silverthorne local Tyler Krahulec, who placed third in the junior men’s sport.Super D is super confusingIn the Super D event earlier in the afternoon, several competitors from each division had a hard time following the course, making it difficult to determine who actually won and who went the correct way. Mike West crossed the finish line first, but second-place finisher Mike Pastori let West pass him after thinking he went the wrong way – penalizing himself. When the riders reached the bottom, they weren’t quite sure what happened, but West was eventually named the winner. West hasn’t lost a Mountain States Cup Super D race this year. “I got out to the lead and a bunch of people went the wrong way, so I got to pass a bunch of people anyhow,” West said.



Confusion was the theme of the day on the women’s side as well. Idaho Springs resident Jennifer Whalen had a big lead in the women’s open division, but made a wrong turn and went the long way down the hill. Kremmling resident Julie Larsen took advantage of Whalen’s mistake and won the race. Whalen has had a successful season this year, winning the NORBA nationals Super D series championship.”I was clearly winning the whole time,” Whalen said. “Obviously there is a weird cut on the trail that a lot of people are taking.”In the 13-14 division, Blue River resident Cullen Moran crossed the finish line first. Andy Frame can be reached at (970) 668-3998, ext. 236, or at aframe@summitdaily.com.


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