Block, Soze and A-Train were the ones suiting up for the #4 stop on the USAC Tailwinds Tour. Sounds more impressive than it actually is. But it's what we local Michiganders have for racing and we love it. Team Wissman is doing a great job keeping this series going.
Soze camped overnight Friday while A-Train got there around 8:30 am and Block Porsched up around 9:30. A-Train was up first and was to go at 10:00. It would be roughly a 7 mile loop according to J-Dub's warm up lap and A-Train's goals for the day were to finish the 4 laps and also try to place one higher in the standings than the last race he attended. Addison was more user friendly to his riding style as there was more single track and less places to flex the road legs. Well one out of two isn't bad, right? A-Train went the distance but still finished Red Lantern style as his legs had nothing this day. He told us that he had started off harder than he should have given his current conditioning level and eventually blew his legs up early. So he spent the rest of the race picking shrapnel out of himself and when it was all finally gone it was to late to make any moves.
Soze took to the 1:00 starting line and made his rookie appearance in a MOTOR jersey. Microsoft has had him out of state working for a few months making the weekends travel time for him mostly and earning him the nickname Oklahoma Soze. After only doing one race last year and maybe none the year prior, OKC-Soze thought it best to race Beginner because he didn't want to be trail traffic to the Sportsters. Plus most of his training has been running and occasional road riding as he keeps his road bike in Oklahoma. Mostly he was there just to hang out with the team again and have a good time......and get in some trail miles. Nothing wrong with that! Well The Soze did his two laps in ~1:10 and that was enough to put him on the podium for a medal and a picture. Right when he stepped off he handed his daughter the medal for her to keep and told her he won it for her.
Block. Nothing was going to stop this guy from racing. He rode fast enough in his class to net 3rd place losing by seconds to the guy one step up. But check out the events surrounding what could have been a better day for him. First, he still had a 102 degree fever 12 Hours before his race. Less than 30 mins before his starting time, his rear tire went completely flat. A-Train and Dubs, with the help of some borrowed KLM tools, were able to get him up and running again without breaking the seal bead of the tire. Right after the race Block was complaining about a loud noise coming from his brakes. A-Train checked it out to find out that the outboard piston of his rear caliper was not retracting meaning Block rode the race with his rear brake on! The noise was caused by the heat generated from the brake not releasing. THEN, after seeing that we noticed the front tire was down to about 10 psi......what a crazy 24 hours for Block. But it didn't stop there. On Saturday night the fever was back and by Sunday he was at Urgent Care and diagnosed with pneumonia.
So to overcome all this and still take third place in his race class, reminds me of when Michael Jordan played with the flu. This should go down in Mountain Bike History and put him on the ballot for the Hall of Fame. This makes three medals in three races for Block....or should we call him Iron Ken?
And let's not forget Diesel. He ventured north for the Michigan Mountain Mayhem. Yes, there are no 'mountains' in Michigan but he completed the dreaded death march that had 10,000 feet in of climbing in the 200km route. We might have to rename him Captain Insane-O.
Four riders. Four scenarios. Four finishers.
We may not be the fastest guys out there but we are one thing for sure . . . . head strong.
Last, good ups to D9 for another Expert podium, B-Rad on his third win of the season and Tailwinds for putting on another good event.
This coming weekend Diesel heads north for the second weekend in a row to tackle the Lumberjack 100 with Dub-9. Will be the first time they both try this race and we are looking forward to hearing all about it!
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