I arrived here at Beech Mountain Resort near Banner Elk, NC, on Wednesday evening, after it took Hertz more than one hour to find me a rental car (with me holding a reservation). So, another late-night drive through unfamiliar mountains.
Yesterday morning I was at the race site at 7:45 a.m., for a first course inspection and meetings with all the key players for this 2012 USA Cycling Gravity Mountain Bike National Championship. When registration opened it became clear that we were in for a long day as the internet initially just coughed, then gave up its life for good. And young staffers nowadays don't know any longer how to switch to Plan B (full manual mode) when the 'puters go on the fritz. My Secretary, Vicki M., and I finally left the venue at 8:15 p.m.
This morning we were back on duty at 7:30 a.m., but yesterday's problems were things of the past. Today's races and qualifiers came off very well, no racers were seriously injured, and the rain stayed away, too. I haven't seen the mountains yet with all the fog and clouds and humidity, but maybe I get a glimpse in the next few days.
Right now I have a very brief break between the Dual Slalom Cat. 2/3 and Pro qualifiers, and so I thought I'd post a quick update, even if I haven't even had a chance to take one picture yet. We have two more full days of competition, and they will be long ones, I am sure. But nothing beats being Chief Referee at Nationals, especially with as fine of a crew of officials as I have surrounding me.
Back to work...
Jürgen
PS: Here are three pics from the Dual Slalom practice that I took after writing this post..
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