I'd been hearing a lot about Superweek: how fast the races were, how everyone targeted it and how Rock Racing was even showing up. Exciting and intimidating at the same time.
Olympia was my first ever Superweek race. I rolled into the parking lot to find a couple of other XXXers and after getting settled started rolling around the course with them. The race started 45 minutes late, which gave us plenty of time to pick apart the course and plan, which is what allowed me and the whole team to do well.
Loukas, Mike Seguin and I started talking with the other XXXers (Alberto, Tom, Andy, Jared and a couple more) and set a plan to drill the pace hard for five laps, which would hopefully pop some of the pack and string it out enough to allow us to take the the downhill, 110 degree dusty turn with the field strung out. Then we'd decided that turn one would be where we'd attack if we were appropriately set up at the end of the race. We made sure everyone knew the plan, which is what made it work.
Jared took a huge jump from the line--setting the tone exactly as we'd planned, and I jumped up to help him after he'd pulled hard for half a lap. Pretty soon I was out front and seven of us had created a little gap. We started to work it, and created more separation. Loukas, Mike and I were all in the break, which made it a little difficult to get anyone else to do any work, but we coerced a few pulls out of a couple other guys.
With about 7 laps to go Loukas slid out in the dicey corner that was covered in dust--taking out Mike who was right behind him. A Beverly rider attacked the crash, which left a Get a Grip rider (Tim) and another Beverly rider (Tony) with me in a group to try and chase him down. Tony was trying to call up to his teammate to slow down and work with the break, but the kid was convinced he could stay away. Surprisingly he crashed out a couple laps later in the dicey corner as well, which put the three of us on the lead.
So I'm in a 3-man break that's sticking with 4-5 laps to go and we're working really well together. I'm super excited and I start formulating what I'll do to try and win. Luckily it wasn't complicated. I happened to have the pull with 3 laps to go, and sat in as Tim took his pull with 2 to go, and then Tony dutifully began his. My pull would have been the final lap, and I wasn't planning on being gassed for the sprint. So as we're halfway up the hill before my pull I attack, which for some reason really surprised the other two. I didn't look back until two corners later and saw I had a pretty solid gap. I still drilled it to the line and took my first ever win.
Despite some massive confusion about the end results both Loukas and Mike were in the top 10. Hell yeah.