Patrick Smage won 2 out of 3 days at the Duluth National to repeat as the NATC champion for the second year in a row. Despite the back problem he suffered from earlier in the year, Patrick was still able to win 4 out of 6 rounds in 2008, never finishing below second. The only rider to top Patrick on the year was Cody Webb, who won one round in Colorado, and one in Minnesota.
Patrick’s weekend in Duluth didn’t start well, dropping 11 points in the first lap on Friday, the only double-digit lap points he dropped all weekend. He improved from there by dropping only 5 points on the second lap, and cleaning the third lap. But it wasn’t enough to beat an on-his-game Cody Webb, who finished the day 5 points ahead of Patrick, 11 to 16.
On Saturday Patrick came back strong, winning by 8 points over Cody Webb. It appears that Section 11 was the toughest on the day, taking 3 or 5 points from every PRO rider on every lap, except for Cody who went 3-3-1 in the section, and Patrick, who cleaned it on his third lap for an excellent 3-1-0 on the section.
And on Sunday, Patrick again had a strong day, though this time it was Will Ibsen who kept pace with him through the first and third laps, and only dropped 5 points more than Patrick on the second lap. For some reason, hopefully explained later on TrialsCentral or in our Forum, time penalties were more frequent and higher on Sunday than the two previous days in Duluth, though in the end, none of the finishing positions were changed due to the penalty points incured.
All of WOTA would like to extend it’s congratulations to Patrick for repeating as National Champion. The other PRO class riders seemed to be a bit closer this year, which hopefully means we’ll have an even better showing than last year at the Trials des Nations which is being held in La Rabassa, Andorra, September 28-29.
Also on the Wisconsin front, Brad Villand won the Expert-Sportsman class in 2008, winning 3 out of the 6 rounds. And Paul Philbrick competed all three days in Duluth in the Senior 35 class. He was right in the thick of things each day, with a best finish being a 2nd on Saturday. Congratulations to Brad and Philly!
Full event results are available on the NATC website results page: http://www.natctrials.org/results.htm
