Casey Brown was the top woman in the third toonie downhill race of the summer on Sunday. She crushed her female counterparts by one minute, but really, any other result would have been almost unacceptable for the rising World Cup racer.
“I had a lot of people trying to get me to beat some of the guys but I couldn’t do that with the run I had,” said the 22-year-old Canadian downhill champion.
Brown has been back in her hometown of Revelstoke for the past few weeks after a successful race season that reached its peak with a fourth place finish at a World Cup downhill race in Norway on Sept. 14. She also won the Canadian championships, was named Queen of Crankworx and finished seventh at the world championships in Austria in August.
“I’m feeling good about it, super stoked,” she said. “It’s good to know that when you put the effort in you can get something in return.”
She accomplished one of her goals with several top-10 finishes in the World Cup and came close to one her long-term goals, which is to finish on top of the podium.
“When I came fourth in Norway that was the icing on the cake for the season,” she said.
Sunday’s race was a low-pressure event for Brown, other than the friendly egging on to top all the guys as well. Her finishing time of 4:31.20 was 28 seconds behind Stu Dickson’s winning time of 4:03.16, but Brown said the lack of pressure compared to a World Cup race affected her performance.
“Without that pressure, I came off my bike in this run, I crashed a little bit,” she admitted. “At the World Cup events I tend to stay on the bike more because of the pressure.”
The race was down the Redneck’s Revenge trail on Boulder Mountain, a steep, twisting trail through cut blocks and forests. Dickson was the last racer down the course and his time was eight seconds ahead of runner-up Nathan Jecks. Marty Schaffer finished third.
On the women’s side, Theresa McGeragle was second and Danielle Backman finished third.
As for Brown, she’ll be spending the next few months in Revelstoke — long enough to take advantage of her season’s pass at Revelstoke Mountain Resort — and will be working with a trainer to get ready for next summer’s World Cup series.
“New Zealand is in the plans and southern California in the early spring.”
The fourth and final downhill race of the year takes place on Sunday, Oct. 14, on the Ultimate Frisby downhill trail. Check www.bikerevelstoke.org for details.