Stoney XC

Sunday marked the 3rd and final race at Stoney Creek Metro Park. It had rained that morning giving the course a good slick mud feel to it. There was an excellent showing from both Kona Midwest and the Whole Foods team. Going into the first lap Christian Tanguy pulled into the lead and was starting to make his usual gap on the field when he took a spill on one of the slick bridges in the pines single track. Asking if he was ok I then seized the moment and pulled into the lead putting a decent gap on the rest of the pack. This being the first lap still I knew I wouldn't be able to hold the pack off even if I did just hammer down so I let the group work back up to me and fell back into the pace line. By this time the pack had thinned out pretty good and Christian was taking his turn at the front quite a bit. Greg Kuhn was riding very strong and by the 4th lap it was down to Greg, Christian and I when I had to go and take my turn crashing. We had just made the decent to the sandy corner after the first section of single track. Greg was leading with myself in the middle and Christian riding caboose. I see Greg hit up his water bottle and figure now's not such a bad time for that so I go for mine. Unfortunately I may have been riding just a hair to close and then my wheel crossed Greg's. From there I watched it all play out in slow-mo as I went for a ride right over the bars water bottle in hand. Greg and Christian take off and I'm scurring to get back on the bike and scoop up my bottle. I managed to work my way back to them and by the time we were in the pines I was back on them again. No really sure what happened but going out on the 5th lap Christian seemed to shut down and it became a battle between Greg and myself. Seeing how strong Greg was racing I knew I had to be ahead of him going into each section of single track if I wanted to keep him near me. He then just sat right on my wheel all through the last sections of 2 track leading up to the final stretch. Just before the last turn Greg jumps up and tears past me and I get up to chase him back down but Greg went into the last corner way too hot and ended up washing out and going down. From there it was home stretch for me with everything I had left. Finally a win in the NORBA series and we snagged a Whole Foods jersey at the same time :).

-Justin