Wade Bootes: Official Web Site

WADE'S JOURNAL

June 27th.

Mt Sainte Anne has always had a great World cup course, this year they did a lot of work but the course only had 2 corners in it. It was going to be so fast but they ended up making a decision maker for the first corner, it was like a round about, you could go either side. This was a first for the world cup, but it really worked out well. I ended up qualifying 5th but I took it easy through the flat corners.
In the rounds I was riding OK, I did not win the first one but then won the second round, in the semi I had a great start but ended up being forced to go the other side of the first corner and I was passed by 2 riders who went the other side and did not qualify to the final. I could not believe it. Then in the looser final, again I had a great start but just did not get though the first corner well. I followed Chris Powell who ended up riding over a flag but was not disqualified. I ended up 8th on the day and that did not help my world cup points chase that much. I now sit in 4th spot but Prokolp has a big lead. With 2 world cups left it is still possible to take the overall win but I will have to ride a lot better than I did on the weekend. For some reason I just did not feel as good as I should on my bike this week. Hopefully next week I will be back on my game and have a successful weekend before flying back to Australia for a few weeks break.

June 20th.

Yesterday I raced the Norba 4X series, the course was still damp from all the rain during the week and made for some difficult pedaling as the course was slow and tight compared to others. I ended up Qualifying 3rd and was riding the course well, you just had to miss the very soft areas on the course. I won all my rounds and transferred to the main event. Here I ended up having lane 3 in the final and felt that I could out sprint the others to the first corner. As the starter gave us the 7 second random warning it was all tense on the start. As we wait there to hear the slightest sound as the gate releases, some one blew an air horn in the crowd which made us all start to go on the gate. It messed me up pretty good as I had no second pedal in my drive. Once I knew I was not going to get in front I backed off, to hopefully see some banging going on in the first corner and get lucky and come out in front. Everyone went through the first corner easy and made for a close race to the second corner. I ended up coming out in 3rd and had to stay there as I could not catch Carter who was in front of me.

Today was the main day for me as it was the Jeep King of the Mountain race that I missed the World Cup in Austria for. Eclipse sports puts on a great race as everything is done so professionally. I was riding the wet grass course well as I had the new IRC 1.9 spike tires on. It is so amazing what a tire change does to your racing ability. With these tires I was able to ride as hard as I could and still have enough grip on the grassy surface. I made it to the final against King again, which was going to be a tough race as he has been riding well lately. Mike had the faster lane first run down but I was able pedal down the last start and get beside him. Just before the last flag we had to go around Mike cut me off into the mud as I was easily going by. I had to slow up some and get back on course and then ended up loosing by 0.51 of a sec. In the next round I had the better side up top and I was in the lead. I ended up crossing the line first by 0.56 of a second which was just enough to take over the lead. Everything was great, I did the TV interview and media photos, but about 10 minute later King had looked at the TV reply and it showed that I had hit and rode over one of the flags up top. This course we were hitting every flag as the course was fast and tight, we had the head official watching during the races to make sure we were all clean. Everything was fine by the official but they still went to the reply and disqualified me which put me back to 2nd place. With this 2nd place it puts me 20 points behind King for the overall, but at the final race it is double points so I still have a chance to win.

Overall it was a great weekend and well worth coming back to the States to race this weekend. Next week is the 4th World Cup in Quebec, Canada.

June 14th.

European Tour first started in London a week before the 1st World Cup that was held in Fort William, Scotland. Miller and I stayed at one of our old BMX buddies house, Justin Ransom for the first week. It has been a few years that I have caught up with Justin but it felt like it was just yesterday that we last hung out. We had a fun week in London and celebrated my birthday with a bunch of other friends from the MTB scene. London was not the best place to hang out to save money, but we had fun either way.
In Fort William I met up with most of the Trek/VW racing team again and stayed with them for the weekend, it seemed like forever that we have all stayed together as everyone is racing all over the world this year, especially the cross country guys. The weather was somewhat nice to us this year as it did not rain as much, which meant for some great racing. The course was pretty much the same, just the first straight was longer this year, which still made a mess in the first corner. I was riding well and having fun on the course and qualified 1st. Racing was a little different as the first corner was really wide open and hard to protect a good line without getting passed either from below or around the top. My first 2 rounds I won with ease and was looking good for a World Cup win. In the quarters most of the top riders were knocked out, most of us in the first corner, Prokolp, King, Gracia and myself. This could have easily been the main. This left with a lot of new faces in the top 8 and made for an interesting start for the Overall World Cup title chase. In my Quarter I was leading in the first corner and Rennie went wide and came out with a lot of speed and basically blew me off my bike on the top side in the first corner. There was nothing I could do, so my race was over, a very disappointing start for the World Cup series for me.

From here Miller and I went back to London for a few days before we flew to France for the next World Cup. At the Airport we had trouble with AIR FRANCE with our excess baggage of our bikes. They totally screwed us by charging us nearly $1100 US. There was no way to get out of it as guy in charge was a real Jack Ass. We even looked for other flights but by the time we changed everything it was going to end up at the same price. We both nearly got on the plane back to the US as we were just over it. We ended up taking the gamble to get on the plane to France and hopefully win back the money we just handed over. So not a great start for the 2nd World Cup. We finally landed in France and we were picked up by Yann from Trek France who was taking care of us for the weekend and drove us up to Les 2 Alpes. I always like going to France as the scenery is so amazing with the mountain all around. We had a few off days as our race was not until Sunday. The course was really cool, a lot of work went into it and it came out to being like a typical French BMX track, very technical and fun to ride, perfect for a Mountain bike as it was a rough track. The course was a little intimidating for a few riders as they did not race.
Qualifying and racing was on the same day, I had a good run and qualified 2nd. The course was 33.3 sec by Prokolp and I posted a 33.6. Racing was going to be rough as the first straight was difficult, fast and tight. I started out picking lane one in my races and won all but the semi where Tomas Allier snapped me out from lane 3. I followed him to the finish line so that I would transfer to the main.
In the main Prokolp picked lane 1, then I picked lane 4, with Tomas taking 2 and Cedric with 3. The gate start was angled a little with Lane 4 being closer to the first jump. Not knowing until after the gate had dropped that lane 4 was such a better lane to come out of, I had a great start and had a bike length into the first corner. From here I put my head down and led all the way to the line to take my 1st World Cup 4X race win. So the gamble paid off as Miller also won the Women's event, we were so happy with our result.

After the Podium we then packed up our bikes and headed to Lyons Airport as we had an early flight back to the States as we will both race the next round of the Norba and Jeep series in Mt Snow, VT.

Just to let you know we did get charged again for over weight baggage of $650 US. Never flying Air France again!!!!!!!!!!!!! The problem was they only gave us 23KG each to fly with and the rest we had to pay for.

Back on top of the World Cup Podium.

Yann guarding the pit area in France.