Minnesota State Championship Series

DULUTH -- Some days are made for racing.

And then there are days like this year's annual Powder Monkey at Spirit Mountain.

Cold.

Wet.

Windy.

Pretty much all around miserable.

"My only goal is to stay happy out there," said Barry Tungseth who placed 19th in the Expert class. Tungseth was talking to some fellow riders while eyeing the results after the race. "It always puts the screws to me out on the course."

True to Tungseth's word, the Spirit course is definitely a mindbender.

With some of the twistiest singletrack in Minnesota, the roughly eight-mile loop is filled with tight turns and enough rocky bumps to put even the best full suspension bike through the ringer.

(During one 10-minute section, I couldn't so much as take my hands off the handlebars to even grab a water bottle.)

And then there's the climbing. Citizen and Sport riders were spared the quad-busting torture of the lower portion of the course on Sunday, but Comp and Expert racers got to experience the full force.

Not that everyone had a problem with that.

"That's my kind of course!" a beaming Comp racer Rich Omdahl said, after the race.

The rough terrain proved exhilirating, RichZilla said, giving the downhill junkie from Plymouth a silver medal in his age group and placing him 8th overall.

"I was angry out there," he said, with traces of David Banner in his voice. "That must be the secret. I can really move when I'm angry."

The rare sighting of the day came with Olympic hopeful Jeff Hall, who actually showed up to race (as opposed to train) on the Lake Superior bluffs.

Hall handily beat second and third-place Expert finishers Brendan Moore and Sam Oftendahl respectively by 9 minutes. (Word has it that when Moore and Oftendahl were asked before the race who among the two of them would win, they both replied, simply, "Um, Jeff Hall is here.")

As for other classes, Jennifer Meyer of Inver Grove Heights won the Expert women and Raymond Nickles of North St. Paul won the Comp.

In the Sport class, Callaway's Jake Richards -- yes, that would be the 14-year-old son of Jay Richards, who placed fifth in Expert -- won the Sport Class race by nearly two minutes over Brian Longley of St. Louis Park. And (ahem, as expected ;)  ) Janna Krawczyk won the Sport women.

In Citizen, Andy Hoffman of Proctor, Minn. won the men's division and Jody Zeleznikar won the women. Logan Schlough of Menomonie, Wis., won the Kid's Comp.

Troy Melhus is a Minneapolis-based writer and Expert racer for the Peace Coffee Racing Team. He can be reached at tmelhus@mac.com