Katie Compton once again asserted herself as the top dog in the world of domestic cyclo-cross racing by easily grabbing the elite women’s title at the 2006 California Giant Berry Farms USA Cycling national cyclo-cross championships. As she has done all season, Compton didn’t necessarily attack the women’s field — she simply turned on the afterburners and said bye bye.

After the race, Compton likened her performance to a joyride, focusing most of her comments on how fun the course was.

“It’s such a fun course with the whoop-de-doos, I just wanted to stay on the gas and take advantage of the fun factor,” she said.

I was lucky enough to watch Compton massacre a field of Cat. III men at a local Boulder, Colorado, race this fall. It was a jaw-dropping performance — the Cat III guys clawed tooth and nail to stay on her wheel — after all, no one wanted to get girled. But again, Compton simply could turn a bigger gear faster than any of the guys, and one by one rode them off of her wheel. Performances like that make it obvious that Compton stands in her own league in women’s ’cross racing on this continent. And with the world championships coming up, the question is how she’ll stack up against heavy hitters like Hanka Kupfernagel and Marianne Vos.

In Providence, Compton said her goal for worlds is a top-10 finish.

“I’d like to go out and see where I stand and then next year really go for it,” she said.

I say go for it this year, Katie. The worlds will be held January 27 and 28 in Hooglede-Gits, Belgium. If the Euros are smart, they’ll keep an eye on the girl in the stars-and-stripes.

Behind Compton in Providence, the rest of the elite women put on a good show, fighting over the table scraps. The best brawl of the day was for third place, and was waged by USGP women’s rookie-of-the-year Deidre Winfield (Velo Bella-Kona) and Kerry Barnholt (Tokyo Joes), another relative newcomer to the sport. Barnholt won the battle, and found the gap just before hitting the pavement.

Barnholt formerly starred on the Subaru-Gary Fisher professional mountain-bike team, however she took a step back from fat-tire racing after 2005. But she put her off-road skills to the test this year on the USGP because the discipline offers the feel of short-track mountain-bike races.

“It’s shorter and doesn’t require the same hours of training on the bike that mountain-biking does,” Barnholt said.

Barnholt nearly became a spectator when United Airlines accidentally sent her bicycle to Florida instead of Providence. Barnholt spent two days without her rig — the bike showed up the morning of the race.

“United told me to rent a bike,” Barnholt said. “How funny is that? I tried to be cool about it, but I spent all day yesterday on the phone and I’m pretty exhausted from dealing with it.”

One can only wonder how Barnholt would have done on a rented hybrid or beach cruiser. It could have been a little tough on the run-ups.

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The final day kicked off with the men’s and women’s B races, and the moved on to the men’s collegiate event. The starting line of the college race resembled the U23 men’s race, only minus U23 champ Jesse Anthony (Clif Bar), who rides professionally on the Kodak Gallery-Sierra Nevada Pro road cycling team.

The collegiate guys put on quite possibly the best battle of the weekend. Last year’s U23 champ Troy Wells, riding for Fort Lewis College, clawed tooth and nail to join the front group which contained U23 stars Jamey Driscoll (Vermont), Bjorn Selander (Univ. of Wisconsin, River Falls) and Joey Thompson (Fort Lewis), and collegiate star Ryan Iddings (Seattle Pacific).

Wells, who injured his foot in the previous day’s elite race, admitted he didn’t like his chances of beating Driscoll, and when he eventually joined the pack he went to the front to work for Thompson. The pace eventually proved too much for Selander and Iddings, and when Driscoll eventually attacked, only Thompson could respond.

Thompson is a member of the Durango, Colorado cycling community, and is best known for his nickname “The Real Joey Thompson.” Like many of his Durango brethren, he wanted to set up a website to chronicle his adventures in bike racing, but “joeythompson.com” was already taken. Therealjoeythompson.com seemed like a logical alternative, and the name has stuck.

The nickname couldn’t help him stave off Driscoll in the end, however. Driscoll was the only racer able to hold Anthony’s wheel in Saturday’s U23 race, however he paid dearly for his move, and midway through the race exploded and faded to fourth. Driscoll appeared ready to take no prisoners in the collegiate race, and shed Thompson on the final descent before the finishing straight.

“Popping yesterday was pretty good motivation,” said Driscoll, who is best known for his impressive mullet. “Not blowing today felt pretty good.”

A similar story unfolded in the next race, the Strawberry Cup elite race, where Tim Johnson (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com), Ben Jacques-Maynes (cyclocrossworld.com-SRAM), Jonathan Baker (Primus Mootry-Harshman Wealth) and Mark McCormack (Clif Bar) appeared to have an axe to grind after Saturday’s elite men’s championship.

For Jacques-Maynes, who has raced ’cross for the lion’s share of his elite career, the extra motivation might be because he plans to take a step back from the scene after this season. The NorCal star recently inked a deal with the Priority Health road team and plans to give it a go at track cycling next fall.

Also taking a step back is McCormack, who announced at the event that he is retiring from professional road cycling.

Baker, who took the Colorado state championship the previous weekend, saw his hopes of competing for Saturday’s elite title erased when he crashed shortly after the start, and eventually faded to 11th.

“My motivation was really waning after yesterday, I was having some back problems,” Baker admitted. “My wife had to convince me to line up today. She told me to take some ibuprophen and suck it up.”

But Tim Johnson was most motivated, and escaped for the win. The 2000 champ suffered a flat tire on the first lap of the elite championship race, and spent most of thee day chasing the lead chase group. While catching eventual winner Ryan Trebon was out of the question, Johnson managed to hold on for third.

“I trained hard for this and was really motivated to do something and felt like I had a chance taken away yesterday,” Johnson said. “I’ll never take anything from Ryan. We’ve raced together all year and he’s beaten me. But all I wanted was a chance, today is a fun race and when you have the fitness and the motivation, you might as well use it.”

Unfortunately, Johnson won’t get a chance to use that fitness at the world championships, and neither will Anthony. The two have responsibilities to their road teams, and will spend the end of January at team training camps. But strongmen like Trebon and Barry Wicks (Kona) will be there, so stay tuned.