Nice! That sounds like so much fun. It's so much more rewarding to challenge yourself when riding offroad, rather than float through it on a super fancy full suspension rig.

In related news, I did my first MTB race yesterday at Sea Otter, on my hardtail singlespeed. I had to swerve around a dude who crashed right in front of me on the first steep technical downhill section, forcing me to take a ridiculously stupid line that I barely held, and causing my water bottle to eject itself into the bushes. I only brought one since it was only a 15 mile course... ****. Held on with the lead pack as long as I could, but was too dehydrated by about mile 8 and stopped at the next aid station for water. Still ended up getting 10th out of 34 in my class, and had a ton of fun.