Last week, we headed back up to the historic North Wilkesboro Speedway for another go at the Wednesday night crit series, only this time we rolled in with 6 Central Carolina riders - me, Brad, Houston, Dave, Matt, and Dustin. The weather was perfect once again and the turnout was solid. Brad and Houston's families came out to lend their support (thanks, Richard, Casey, and Theresa!).

With 6 riders, we had enough to talk strategy before the race. Brad and Houston were placed on "break patrol" and had full power to make something happen off the front of the race if they could stay clear, or at least chase down any breaks that looked dangerous. Since we knew from his win at Rock Hill that Dustin can hold his own in a sprint, the rest of us were tasked with making sure Dustin got to the line safely and in a position to take it. With Matt and Dave's mad time trial skills, we felt confident we could pull together a solid leadout train on the last lap.

Turned out our plan worked perfectly! Brad and Houston launched attack after attack off the front during the race, continuously causing some of the stronger riders to bridge up and expend a lot of extra energy. None of the breaks stayed clear, but by wearing riders down, Brad and Houston played key roles in what went down at the end. With 2 laps to go, I made my way to to the outside with Matt in tow. A line quickly formed behind us with Dustin on Dave's wheel about 5 riders back from me. At the start of the last lap, I took off around the outside as hard as I could go and pulled off coming out of the first corner. Then Matt pulled through and off, leaving a couple of riders in front of Dave and Dustin. By this time, our train had already surprised the pack and was quickly rolling up the outside to the front of the race. Dave recognized it was time to get around the riders in front of him and he made a brilliant and quick move pulling Dustin
straight up to the front of the pack going into the last turn. If you haven't seen Dave time trial, it's pretty amazing...he made it impossible for anyone to come around him and Dustin until coming out of the last turn -- and that's when Dustin poured it on. Timed perfectly, Dustin jumped off Dave's wheel coming out of the last turn and blazed a trail straight to the finish line! I'm pretty sure I saw some flames coming from Dustin's bottom bracket...

Congratulations to Dustin and the team for working so well together!

We actually have a picture this time -- attached.

So far this year, our team now has:

Three 1st places
One 3rd
One 4th
One 5th
and a few top 15s.