First Race of the 2008 Season!

It seems 2008 is going to be another great year for the Jenson USA race team. Mark Mumea started the new year with perhaps his best race to date, and two other Jenson riders earned trophies on Jan. 12 at the first round of the Southridge Racing Club’s Shimano Winter Series in Fontana, Calif. Mark won the expert men 27-34 cross country class, followed by teammate Rod Leveque in a close second. Timothy Pickett finished 5th in the expert men 35-44 class, and Dean Long took 7th in a deep sport men 35-44 group. The victory was Mark’s first since he moved to expert late last season. “It was an awesome race!” he said afterward. “I went back and forth with Rod - he just kept clawing his way back - and somehow I managed to hold him off at the end. I think today is the hardest I've ever pushed.” The race was the first MTB competition in the country in 2008, according to Mountain Bike Action. It couldn’t have been a better day to race. The weather was spring-like, and the recent heavy rains in SoCal left the dirt loamy. Organizers added a few new sections to the 7-mile cross-country course and buffed out the old sections in the weeks leading up to the race. All this meant the course was in its best shape in at least the last three years. Experts rode three laps of the 7-mile cross country loop. Sports rode two and beginners rode one. Southridge also hosts downhill, super D and 4x races during its Winter Series. It’s a great atmosphere, and only a few miles from Jenson’s Ontario retail store. Round 2 is Jan. 26-27.