The North Carolina CX series race in Durham sponsored by Performance/Diamondback was quite a solid success, with a very promising future.

The race was held at the Orange County Speedway with a course that had close to 300+ riders start and finish on the apron of the race track.  The course offered varied terrain that began by winding the riders thru the infield of the track to the only set of double barriers prior to taking them up and out over the back straight entrance. Most riders opted to run the barriers, with only a few making the effort to bunny hop them. After that racers were sent into a technical off cambered crushed gravel turn which slowed every rider to a near stop before sending them out into the first open, slightly uphill section with a few soft turns that would lead them into a tight and twisty wooded single-track area.  The riders then had to tackle several steep off cambered turns that went up and down the hill outside the track, with the final one being a straight shot up the hill before doubling back on the course.  From there, the riders entered the Diamondback sponsored section which began with a small riser that most riders would “air out” (with some heckling from the crowd which we encouraged) followed by a short, tight, technical single track section that spit them out into a few more turns that put you onto the homestretch - a fast descent down the slight hill straightaway with a hard right to put them back onto the track to race around the track apron to the finish.

Diamondback's Brian Rinckenberger started off strong and tapered off quickly racing one of the RCX Pro’s.  He moved to front early on and was running well finishing up on the day mid field (26th out of 40).  Having coerced him into racing may just be the nudge needed to get the racing bug back! In the SingleSpeed race, James (DB Demo Van Driver) won the Hole Shot swag contest being the first rider thru the infield and barrier section, leading part of the first lap before settling in to take 3rd. Also, doubling down at the event he races the RCX Pro Disc to 12th place finish in the Master’s 1/2 race.

Overall there was a good buzz around the Diamondback tent with people stopping in, looking at the bikes and asking for pricing information, availability, and future DB offerings (carbon?). We sent out about quite a few people for quick test rides with Sales Manager, Brian Rinckenberger,  David Swan from Performance and Evan Vader (a local Cat 2 racer) all riding the RCX Pro in their races.   They were quite impressed by its handling, ride quality, the amount of power the TRP brakes could generate.

All in all, a very fun weekend indeed!