Monday, May 18, 2009

OKC Dirty Six & Ethos Racing

Jesse Gross, Travis Donn, and I headed down after BikeSource closed on Saturday to Oklahoma City. This was the first race in the Ridin Dirty endurance series, it was a 6 hour at Lake Thunderbird outside on Norman, OK. We arrived at a friend of Jesse and Travis's that had a sweet little apartment in Bricktown just after 11:00. There was a international triathlon that took place on Saturday and Andy was already hosting a couple of Brazilians and one Swede that had competed that day, so it was a full house. We all crashed hard, and got a good nights sleep before the race.
Thunderbird is a sandy maze of trails with endless bermed out corners set in a sea of poison ivy. We did not pre-ride the trail, but I have raced there a few times in the past so I knew the basic style. Laps were just under 7 miles so Travis and I decided to do two at a time. I took the first pull, and was the first one on my bike at the Le Mans start, and we never looked back. The course was hit pretty hard by rain the week before and it did not look like it had seen much action lately. My first lap was my slowest of the day, an even by my second lap the trail had picked up speed considerably with all the tires over it.
Travis took solid pulls the whole race and conceded no time to our pursuers. Our lead was steadily growing, and the trail kept getting more and more fun. By my third set of laps everything was clicking and did my fastest two laps and set fast lap for the day at 31:14. Travis knocked out one more and we finished a few minutes after 3:00 to seal the deal. The race was expertly ran and it was a shame that the rain had scared off many people. The people that were there all got treated to an awesome day of racing. Hopefully we can make the other races in the series and support all their hard work.
This was the first event for what will become Ethos Racing team. Under the banner for the first time it was good to chalk up a nice W. More to come.