Florida State Championship series #4 – Vortex trails – Ocala, Fl

We have hit the midway race in the series and it was good for once not to be faced with a weather situation, in fact the weather was awesome and trail conditions dry for a change. Many thanks to the OMBA volunteers that pitched in to get the trails open by the way, after all we were only a week past the last hurricane damage.

The seven mile course was set up with most of the heavy lifting in the first half (the vortex red trails) and then the second half was fast flowing single track and it seemed to make for some close finishes in many classes. In the elite men’s class it was a battle to the end with Jack Mizzoni taking a narrow (1 second) win and handing former champ Victor Alber his first XC loss of the season. Simone Berger (also former FSC champ) however produced a comfortable gap early on and won the women’s top class. Nick Mackie won the Expert Emtb class and Simone Berger won the women’s Emtb group.

Victor Alber and Julianna Moreno will continue to wear the Ways leaders jersey going into the next round and the team championship has another new leader in “Bike Parlor / MRI imaging” with a nine point lead. The Mudder Ducker $50 fast lap prime belonged to Troy Zimmerman in the 60+ expert class. Next race is 11-4/5 back at the same location (with a different layout however) and there will be a short track bonus race plus it is a Coconut Cup make up race (both the XC & ST)!