AT IT AGAIN

{words by brian}

Saturday was the State Crit Championships in Olympia, WA. 40 minutes on a .7 mile “technical course." The weather was sunny and warm. The course was pretty fun. And the coveralls were ach’n to get out again.

The pace at the beginning was just to my liking as I was working off a 2am night of drinking with the Oly boys…slow. But after 10 minutes of racing I got bored. So I attacked on the home stretch incline to spice up the race. Before I knew it I had a pretty good size gap on the field. I didn’t plan on staying out front but the cheers of “COVERALLS!” kept me going longer than I expected. Next thing I hear is the announcer calling me Sally over the intercom (thanks Oly boys) and the crowd cheering for me. During the course of this, a rider bridged the gap up to me…and to my surprise, this guy started working with me. On the last lap he jumped me on the incline…I bridged…he jumped again into the head wind…my legs were done. I had enough of a gap on the rest of the field that I was able to wave to the crowd as I coasted in for 2nd and grabbed the PBR tall boy hand up from Uncle Jesse.

The kid who won rolled up to me and congratulated me and commented “Hey, I think you did most of the work but I couldn’t get beat by a guy in coveralls. Ya know?” I could only smile and said “Imagine how all those other guys feel.”

I heard today the officials contemplated disqualifying me for the PBR. But honestly, how can you DQ a guy who raced in 80+ degree heat in a pair of coveralls who just wanted something to drink?!