Results: Jeep 48Straight -Vernon New Jersey

Jeeps Everywhere Chris Dannen

Funny how well you know the awful, familiar sounds that preface someone biting it, hard. You hear the first suck-in of air before the impact--the Oh, Shit breath--and rubberneck just in time for the impact. That's how I come to catch Stephanie Nychka, one of the female competitors at this year's Jeep 48Straight dual-slalom race, undershoot a small gap jump and plow into the face of the jump like a small airplane hitting the Andes.

She's crashed on a practice run. We're the only ones on this part of the course--I'm scouting good spots to shoot photos, once the heats begin--and I'm 20 feet away when her pink-framed rig flails. Her body does a belly-slide down the leeward side of the jump like a harbor seal. She pops up and smiles at me oddly, embarrassed.

But it's a beautiful day here at Diablo Freeride Park in Vernon, New Jersey, and the park team has constructed an impeccable course designed by world champion Eric Carter, who's also qualified as the #3 seed in the race. Brian Lopes is here too, seeded first, and so is Rich Houseman, who starts out ranked seventh. Completing the field of sixteen male riders is also a small contingent of young upstart riders like J.D. Swanguen, 19, and Cody Warren, 22.

This event is the successor to the Jeep King of the Mountain series, which, according to Al Sommers, the guy doing PR for the event, was more or less the same, but without the focus on music, culture, and sustainability. Indeed, the hospitality tent has recycling bins, real silverware (not plastic), and there are little signs posted all over the place that make me feel bad about being a consumptive human being.

The female field is stacked, too: U.S. National Series winner Kathy Pruitt is here, and so is Melissa Buhl, the reigning dual-slalom national champion.

There's also some local talent on hand. The first heat has Lopes racing 16-seed Lars Tribus, the downhill masters world champion and New Jersey-bred marketing guy by day. In the first heat, Tribus comes from behind to eliminate Lopes by almost half a second.

A few of the other big-name riders fall too, leaving Warren, Swanguen, Petr Hanak and Jared Rando in the semi-final heats. One the women's side, Stephanie Nychka has ridden into the semi-final with a new bike--the crash I witnessed cracked her frame at the headtube gusset. She's defeated by Melissa Buhl, who goes on to race Pruitt in the final. Buhl takes a dusty spill coming out of one of the final turns, and Pruitt takes first for the women.

The women's podium: Myklak, Pruitt and Buhl Chris Dannen