11/5 Bubba 5 @ Vlasis, Masters, 1st.

 

I'm feeling good after this one. I really had to think about the last time I felt like this after a race and would have to go back to when I won the Midwest SS Championship race in 2010 when everything was just clicking, there was strong competition and I was feeling laser like focus. 

Vlasis is a great new venue with lots of features to use and they setup a really interesting and super challenging course. It felt really hard during the few laps of course inspection and I tried the sand pit once and thought it might be better to run it. On the line Devin said said he was riding it so I figured I'd go for it. 

A group of 5 or so SS riders with Kukla started 30 seconds in front of us. I think there were about 10 in our group and Doug Sweeney was back as well as an out of towner so I wasn't sure what to expect. I took the hole shot and we caught and passed all the SS riders not long after going through the sand.  I was surprised to see that I was opening up gaps pretty quickly. On the second lap Devin caught me coming through the start finish but I responded and stayed in the front. I'm not sure where he started to fall back but I had opened up a gap on him on the 3rd lap. Doug and Jon were a little behind him. 

I don't remember when I passed Kukla but think I was out front for a few laps. He yo-yoed me for the rest of the race and with 2 laps to go I had caught back up to him but couldn't make it stick. I finished pretty strong, probably 8 seconds behind Kukla and and with about 2 mins on Devin and Jon. I really wasn't expecting to perform like that after 3 weeks of hard riding. Makes me question the rest week but I'm going to stick with the plan.