I had to travel for work and missed out on Woodland Park and Olympia last weekend. I hadn't been on the bike for almost two weeks and I was worried how it might affect my performance. Was I going to be off my game or would time off the bike actually do me some good? Time to find out.
I have to give thanks to couple of things.......Our new RV and NOT having to race at 9:15am. It was a clear, beautiful Sunday morning but it was frikin' cold....I guess I should be thankful for a third thing.....NO rain. That would have made it miserable. Anyway when I woke up it was 29 degrees and the mercury was making no real effort to climb. Those in the early races had to deal with that so won't complain(We're not wussy's, we just haven't had the chance to acclimate yet :) When we arrived at the venue at 11:15 our thermometer showed it had reached the balmy temperature of 36. After registering I bundled up and along with Chris and Mark from Audi I headed out for a spin on the course. I must of had about 10 pounds of gear on to keep warm. The course had thawed out and was actually pretty grippy. There were some sections with rocks that could be an issue so I decided to bump up my tire pressure a little. It was looking to be another course that was right up my alley, a "roadie course" as some of my competitors would coin it. The exterior of the course was flat and fast. The interior had a couple of short beach sections, three barrier sections (two were on short run-ups) an off camber grass section and a rideable muddy uphill and downhill section. That was it, pretty straight forward but still a lot to deal with.
After a couple of recon laps Chris and I headed back and sat my RV that was comfortably heated to about 80 degrees. With about 1/2 until our start we headed out and warmed up in the parking lot. I got chilled fast. I decided I was going to be happier with a warm core so I headed back for a few more minutes in the RV. I headed over to the staging area with ski gloves and a big, warm down coat. I planned on leaving them on until just before the start.
As we staged I took a look around and noticed we had a good sized field. A few notable were absent. Rocky had finally upgraded. I heard that Larry(Stanley) had slipped a disc in is back a few weeks ago and was out. That bummed me out. He is a great guy and it is fun to battle it out with him in races. Heal up fast Larry!! My teammate Mark was also out with a nasty chest cold. I think guys knew there was a great opportunity to capitalize on the absence of three strong racers.

Brian(Stanley) was in second and I was in a group of about five others that were battling to get up on Brian's wheel. It was tight racing during the first couple of switchbacks but I was slowly able to move up. As we moved to the interior of the course I finally got by Matthew(20/20 Fuel) and Todd(Collision One) and settled in behind Brian and after a minute or so we managed to get on Steven's wheel. He was setting a good pace and before long we had a small gap on the rest of the field. On one of the switchbacks I could Chris(Audi)who had a horrible start, drilling it hard to move through the pack. The next time I was able to look back I could see they had some separation from the pack and was still working hard to close the gap.
I started lap two still sitting in 3rd. I think Brian took the lead from Steven somewhere before the first set of barriers. When I remounted after the barriers I couldn't clip in with one shoe and fell off a bit. I just stayed calm. There are a lot of places on this course where mistakes can be made and I wanted to make sure I didn't do anything to put myself further back. I pushed really hard on the flat sections on the far side of the course and was able to hook back on just before the finish line.

I'm not completely sure what lap we were on but I think it was with three to go. I finally made a move right before the first set of barriers and took the lead. I decided to push the pace to see if I could make some noise. After a minute or so I looked back and saw that Brian had dropped off some. Steven was still stuck to my wheel and Chris had closed the gap. Don and Brian were still in striking distance. I finished the lap in the lead but it was still anyones race.

Bell Lap!! I moved by him in the same spot I did the lap before and focused on riding mistake free.

Steven pushed me to the limit and I actually felt a little bad that someone had to finish second in this one. He rolled through in 2nd with Chris right behind in third.
The win moved from 8th to 3rd in the series and next week is shaping up to be an epic battle. Todd is still the one to beat and the early forecast looks like it might be his kind of day, a rainy, muddy mess on a technical course. See you next week!!
All photos by
Denise Phillips
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