Page 38 - Paddock Life Issue 13 ADRENALINE

A week later Jenny and I were shooting the AM37 in Cannes so took the two-hour drive to the mountains above Nice. At 5:30 am in the morning we have a GoPro on the front of the rental car and Jenny is in her full racing leathers ready for the first run. I am going to do a run behind with the car to film and will then select a couple of sections to shoot some stills once we can see how the “track” runs. The early morning road surface has damp patches as we take the first run. I am about 10 feet behind in the car slicing through the hairpin bends keeping her in shot. As the sun comes up and the road dries she is getting faster and I am seeing the techniques of this incredible sport demonstrated before me, my rental car is screaming away (I’m in a low gear) between 70 and 80 kmph, so she is moving now. We drive back to the top and do another couple of runs as we are covering about 3-4km on each run, from this I can imagine the races. They start in heats of about 4 riders and race for position, so it’s pretty crazy stuff and crashes are a regular occurrence (why is this not on TV?) and in that way, it’s a bit like cycling where a single rider can take out everyone behind them in a crash. The mountain is starting to wake up, so it’s time for us to head back to Nice and do some work.
A couple of weeks later Jenny is off to Boston, Massachusetts for the final race and Killington, she is currently placed third in the rankings, so a good result here will push her back to second in the world. Although born in Boston she hadn’t been back since early childhood, so this was always going to be a strange trip. Meeting up with one of the girls from the Euro tour she called me once there as we had some images to select for this issue (like I said always working), it was raining, but Jenny Rain is fast in the rain. I got a message to say she had qualified well for Sunday’s race. It was a long very fast track and she had clocked 70mph on the speed trap, which on a 4ft plank is seriously fast. A new wheel company had given her wheels and she was happy with the set up on the board. This can get quite technical and at these speeds wheel diameter and compound are everything and truck set up crucial as speed wobble would be a killer.
We spoke on Monday after the race. Jenny had crashed out as the girl in front crashed and she couldn’t avoid her, she jumped up to get back on the board, but her right leg was broken and race over... so third in the world rankings, but knowing she could have taken the second and is tipped as the only girl on the circuit with a chance of challenging the three time women’s world champion American Emily Pross. Like any true racer Jenny sees her injury as part of the sport and is looking forward to getting back into training as soon as her leg has healed. I and the rest of our team are looking forward to getting out to a couple of races and watching our creative director kick some ass on the mountains in what is one of the most adrenaline fuelled sports we’ve come across.
Next season Jennifer Schauerte will race the IDF Championships with the full support of Paddock Life and we’ll be sure to make some great copy from it. Now I’m going to get out on my mountain bike for a bit of downhill which now seems incredibly tame by comparison.
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