Was going to go and race Sunday in Warsaw but came across a race in St. Louis sanctioned my USACycling and called the MOBRA Missouri State Championships. Went down on Friday afternoon to pre-ride the course but they didnt have it setup yet so I just rode the trails to get use to the terrain....really loose rock and lots of washouts with serious tree roots.
We started the race on pavement and had about a 100yd sprint to get into the timber and singletrack. The first 2 miles of the course was very fast, flowing singletrack....I came into the timber in 3rd place and all 15 of us were tucked in wheel to wheel with no place to pass. We came into a small crossing and the guy right behind me endo'd and took out the whole group behind him. The leader was setting a slower pace than I wanted...this race was only 1 lap of 5.6 miles and he was acting like it was a endurance race. We had broke away from the group when they wrecked so I was yelling at him telling to get it moving so they didnt catch back up with us.....he didnt respond. I had pre-rode this section so I knew of a few places to pass and we were getting close to the 1st. The rest of the group had caught us by now and I wasnt happy. The 1st place to pass had a tree with trail on both sides of it and as we approached it i went to the big chainring and hammered down. They both went to the right and I flew by them on the left at a high rate of speed. I left them and never saw them the rest of the race. There was a tunnel under a RR crossing we had to go thru after the 2 mile mark, then the tough technical climbs began. Im so short that I could actually lay down on the bike and ride under the tunnel....on the other side it was a "hike a bike section" we carried the bikes up the climb because of some serious washouts and was unridable. The 1st big climb rewarded us with a very fast downhill, that basically was a "hold on and let it rip" section. I still couldnt hear or see anyone behind me as I started up the next climb, so i slowed my pace a bit and took it easy....not good to do that...lost my momentum and spun the rear tire and had to pack the bike up the rest of the hill. I was still in good shape and jumped on bike for another fun downhill.....this one ended with a sharp corner with loose rock and a huge tree that the root was showing. On the other side of the root was a 2.5" dropoff....by this time I was getting a bit tired and as I jumped the root my back tire caught it and sent me flying. I landed about 20' from where I started and on in some slight pain....but the adrenalin kicked in. My chain came off and had to take a few seconds to get it back on. A guy from the marathon class had caught me and passed me on the next climb. I wasnt too concerned because he wasnt competing against me. The rest of the course was flats and downhills so I stuck right on his wheel to complete the race.
The next racer was 2 mins and 40 secs back, so i had a much larger leader than I thought. I won my first race and was crowned Category 3 Missouri State Champion.

Denny, Congrats on your win. That is really awesome!!! You did it right getting around the slower riders as quickly and as clean as possible and making a gap. Once you get out of sight they usually don't push as hard and if you keep the hammer down you can really create a large gap.

Thanks Mitch...It was a fun time.....they gave me my stars and stripe jersey for winning, took all the pics, gave me my medal.....then they apologized as they took my jersey back because they realized I had only purchased the 1 day USACycling license. You had to have a full membership to be eligible for the jersey....oh well....still got the victory and the bruises on my hip for my efforts, oh ya and a nice pair of socks!!!!