I finally landed back in Calgary Dec. 17th at 4am. What a fun 25 hrs of travel that was! The snow storm in the East cost us 3 hours in delays, but we made it home safely so that is the most important thing.

After my disappointing selection process and non-selection to the World Cup Team it was up to me to dig deep and prove I belonged in the World Cup and not on the Inter-Continental Cup circuit. I raced 3 times in Europe (Torino, Konigssee, and Winterberg) and placed 2nd, 7th, and 2nd. These results have landed me at 13th over-all in the World thus far (World Cup, IC Cup, Europa Cup, and America’s cup are all joined in a single ranking list this year).

The first race was a major challenge as I came down with stomach flu the night before the race. I got up in the morning with massive stomach cramps and the need to be very close to a washroom. I ate a few bites of breakfast, packed a few extra pairs of underwear (which thank-fully I never did have to use…!), and went to the race. My warm-up was as much as I could muster and my pushes were actually quite good. I pushed the same as I did at the Olympics in the first run (4.83) and on the second run I bested that by a full 1/10th. I had a few skids on the first run and was sitting in 7th place, but I laid down a very good second run (best of the heat) and pulled myself back into 2nd place. 3 days in bed after the race and I was on the road to recovery. I watched the entire first season of ‘24’ in 2 days.

Konigssee is a track I wish had never been built. I really do not like it there. It is not all that difficult except for at 2 points in the track. A mistake in one of these two points and the race is gone. I don’t like tracks where mistakes are so ‘all or nothing’ – I think a mistake should have the opportunity to be fixed if the driver has enough skill and in Konigssee mistakes in the straight or in the Kreissel are not fixable (for a safe decent yes, but not for time). Anyway, I managed to come 7th and I was only 3/100ths out of 5th. My third best result ever at that track. My push was again quite good with a personal best of 4.76 (4.83 previous PB).

Winterberg is a track at which I have won the past 2 World Cups I have competed in there so I was expecting big things. Since I was there last (3 years ago) they have changed the start area and added a corner to the top of the track. The start now gives us a bit more velocity into (the old) corner 1 and I was very surprised how much effect the extra 5km/hr changed the entire track. At least half the corners required relearning and new plans of attack. I was not having much success in training with poor speeds and poor finish times. Each day I did feel a little bit more comfortable on the track again, but the time still did not seem to be there. One other hurdle was put in front of me in Winterberg as I slightly sprained the S.I. joint in my back on the Tuesday after we arrived. That gave me 3 days to ‘recover’ before race day. So, my physical preparation before this race was not what I wanted and my push did suffer a tiny bit. After carefully studying the training videos from the last day of training I felt that on race day I had a very good plan and with all I had faced that week and in the weeks prior I made it my main goal to have a ‘proud’ feeling after the race. This required me to trust my driving plan (even though I had not practiced it and the race would be the first time I was to try a few different steers in some very key corners), and perform well even with the obstacles facing me. My first run found me in 3rd place. The new steers I had planned and calculated had worked but my timing of them was slightly off. The second run was very well executed and I was 2nd on that run (1/100th off the best time and 2/10ths off the track record) which netted me a 2nd place result. I felt proud of myself and am excited to have another chance at that track in the future with my new knowledge of the ‘new’ Winterberg track.

I am now back in Calgary until the New Year and I am looking forward to chasing out the last remnants of this back sprain (95% gone now) and re-engaging in my training plan for the few weeks before my next race. Canadian Championships are on Jan. 5 & 6 and are a 4 run race this year to help us prepare for the Olympic and World Championship race formats.

Christmas will be an exciting time with the kids and I am looking forward to hanging with family and eating some Turkey!