The eastern Canada college town of Bathurst in New Brunswick will host the world's best Ice Cross Downhill athletes for a Riders Cup race on February 5-6. Bathurst hosted a 325-meter long track carved into a hill at Collège Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick last year and the race was highly popular with 3,000 people in attendance.
Scott Croxall will be looking to keep his winning streak alive this weekend at home in Canada after the titleholder clawed his way back into the championship with back-to-back wins in Finland in late January in a Riders Cup race in Rautalampi followed by a Red Bull Crashed Ice win in Jyväskylä-Laajis. Croxall cut American Cameron Naasz's lead at the top of the standings to just 50 points with the 1,250 points he picked up from those two wins and the 2015 World Champion could move into first place for the first time this season with a win on Saturday.
"I'm feeling good," said Croxall after arriving in Canada following a long month of grueling racing in the world's fastest sport on skates at four European stops in Germany, France and Finland over the last four weekends -- where racers hit speeds of up to 80 km/h down the specially built ice tracks. "My body feels ready for the last four races of the season in North America," said Croxall, referring to three Riders Cup stops and the Red Bull Crashed Ice season finale in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the end of the month that will likely decide the championship.
Naasz had won the first two Red Bull Crashed Ice races of the season, which were worth 1,000 points each for him, and held a commanding lead before the two races in Finland. But with his back to the wall, Croxall won both the Riders Cup (worth 250 points) and the Red Bull Crashed Ice races to surge up to 2,735 points and move within touching distance of Naasz's 2,785 points. "I believe I get stronger with every race," said Croxall, who says he didn't feel any pressure after Naasz dominated the early part of the season. "I'm not trying to think about a winning streak. I'm just trying to focus on what I have to do in each moment at the time. I'm taking each race and each heat one at a time."
Croxall is breathing down Naasz's neck following his victory in Jyväskylä-Laajis. Photo: Sebastian Marko/Red Bull Content Pool.
Alongside Naasz and Croxall, many other top riders taking part in the racing in Bathurst include: Dean Moriarity (CAN), Derek Wedge (SUI), John Fisher (CAN), Max Dunne (USA), Matt Johnson (USA) and Coleton Haywood. The top women include overall leader Jacqueline Legere (CAN) and Alexis Jackson (USA), fresh from her win in Finland last week.
The sport's first Australian is also expected to take part in the race in Bathurst, which was a less formal race organized last year by Bruno Richard before being elevated to a Riders Cup race this year. Richard is 37th overall this season after taking 23rd at the Red Bull Crashed Ice race in Finland. An Australian hockey player named Luke Webb from Brisbane has been training hard and traveled far to take part in the Riders Cup race in eastern Canada.
"I love being on the ice," said Webb, who started working on his masters in chemical and metallurgical engineering in Australia. "I've been ice skating, doing downhill inline and park rollerblading for years so when I saw the race a few years ago online that had all those components, I knew I wanted to try it. I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie so anything that gets the heart racing is right up my alley."
He's also planning to race in Sherbrooke and Mont du Lac as well in the hopes of getting a spot at the final Red Bull Crashed Ice race in Saint Paul. "My goal for completing the Riders Cup is to get enough points and experience to get to try my hand at the world class Saint Paul event. Fingers crossed because it's how I dreamed this trip would end."
The Riders Cup was created as a new feeder event to open the sport to even more competitors in more locations. The six Riders Cup races this season, where winners earn 250 championship points, are part of the Ice Cross Downhill World Championship alongside the four Red Bull Crashed Ice races, where winners earn 1,000 championship points. Whoever wins the most points from three of the four Red Bull Crashed Ice competitions and from three of the six Riders Cup races will be crowned Ice Cross Downhill World Champion.