12 Hours of Temecula 2010

Great weather for a 12 hour race!!

Wow, what an adventure this past weekend. I was hell bent to drive to SoCal to race the 12 Hours of Temecula and had to drive through one of the worst storms I have experienced in some time. It was pretty dangerous at times with the white out snow conditions and wind. I ended up making it to Kingman on Thursday evening just before ADOT closed down Interstate 40 for the night. That was 9 hours of driving at this point.I was now hoping the rain and wind would subside going into Friday for the race on Saturday. Turned out the drive from Kingman to LA wasn't so bad. The rain and wind were on and off all morning and when I arrived in the Huntington Beach area around noon it was raining steady. The forecast going into Saturday for Temecula wasn't looking so good. Rain/snow into the early morning was called for. I kept my positive attitude hoping it would break sooner. By late afternoon on Friday; Keevin, and the boys from Vegas (Hileman and Pace) had thrown in the towel for making it out. Also out was Matt Turgeon, from Durango, whom had called it on Thursday with all the snow coming down in the four corners area. Me; I was on a mission. Saturday morning came fast and at 5am I woke up at Keevin's house, looked at the forecast for Temecula, and the weather had blown through and clear skies were being called for. I drove into Temecula looking at clear/partly cloudy skies. It was going to be a good day after all weather wise. Now to see what the course looked like with rain all week drenching the area. After arriving at the Vail Lake the trail didn't look so bad. Pretty sandy conditions with clay in spots. The racers were piling in as the morning progressed before start time. I had not one person I knew at the race and set up my truck on the trail to self support myself. I had everything dialed in for a long day on the bike. The first lap of the race wasn't bad; a little wet and loamy but not bad for many of inches of rain falling on the course. As the race progressed the course became slower and slower with the loamy conditions and the moisture wicking up to the surface. Definitely a leg zapper on the climbs on the single speed. Turned out to be 15 solo single speeders in my class. I took off at the start and led for the majority of the race until lap 10. During the first few laps there was 3 or 4 of us pretty close together and I had only minutes leading mid way of the race. I just kept pushing hard and skipped my pit a couple of times to try to increase my lead. By lap 7/8 I was in front by only 6 minutes and just kept pushing hard. Lap 10 is when I started to fall apart. The train was coming detached. On a hike-a-bike section one of the guys had caught up to me and passed me. At this point I could not get my heart rate up and I had to let him go. I was bummed to not be able to chase on but it happens and I held on for 2nd place overall in the solo single speed class. My plan before this juncture was to keep going and if I had gotten to the start/finish without anybody passing me I would have went for an 11th lap but I had no gas to chase this guy so he ended up going for an 11th lap with us only a minute apart going through the transition. But like I said I had no gas to go and decided to stop and settle with 2nd place. A great battle all day with these guys. I'm feeling pretty confident going into the 2010 season with an early season podium for sure. Look out Old Pueblo!!