Scoring this win for the team was a surprise and a bonus.  Going into the race, I put all my eggs into one basket named Matt Smith.  I was supposed to be the alternate who launched the final attack to cause the chase.  But instead, I took too long getting to the front and Matt's instincts forced him to go from what he says, "was like a kilometer from the line" (I'm sure it felt like a decade).  Thankfully, the gods were on my side and I was fortunate enough to get to the front just in time to jump on the train as the lone chaser took off.

Prior to starting the race, the team had a tiny pow-wow to discuss what our tactic for the race would be.  Nothing too fancy, but nothing I'll go into detail over as we would hate for the tactic to be used against us at a later date.  Kidding.  Everyone knows how to race as a team as did we and we raced perfectly as planned. 

We kept the race quite animated with Jason M taking giant pulls, Julian covering attacks, Andreas patrolling the front ALL day while also finding time to get a prime, Jason K. also going after primes, and a few secret weapons in the form of a Nick Gierman and a Joel Feinberg covering moves.  The announcer (thank you Jon Tenney) had a good time calling out our name throughout the race as I thought we did a good job to keep things interesting. 

As was expected, the race was going to come down to a bunch sprint.  With one to go, the attacks came flying fast and I worked my way to the front.  Just as I was getting there, Matt Smith put in a formidable attack that took him to a well deserved 5th place.  The move forced JT from xXx to chase.  I grabbed the wheel and sat until it was my turn to launch. 

It was not easy as I had one of the best bunch sprinters in the midwest, who goes by the name of Shane Winn, on my wheel.  He got VERY close to edging me out, but I found just enough energy to click one more gear and surged and threw for the win!  He finished 2nd and Boba finished 3rd.  I think JT got 4th and our very own suicide attacker Matt Smith got 5th. 

It was a great race, fast and safe.  The team did a PHENOMENAL job and we reaped some serious dividends from all the hard work. 

Go vitaminWater-TREK!

Thank you to UCVC for putting this race together and doing such a great job.  Also, thank you to everyone who helped to get the patch of pavement sealed over so that the racing could go on.