It's been a couple of days since the Dick Evans memorial, so I figure I should peck out a race report on my final race of the 2008 season.

After a Pacific Velo pre-race dinner on Saturday night, I actually got to sleep at a reasonable hour, with my alarm set for 4:10am. Sunday morning I get woken up by LA with the dreaded words "Dude, do you know what freakin' time it is?" ... Me: "Oh SHIT it's 5:09am!!!" With the race starting 10 miles away at 5:45am I was totally thinking about just crawling back into bed and writing off the race. After a little motivational "get your ass out the door" talk from LA, I threw on my kit (which I had fortunately packed the night before) and drove over to Hawaii Kai.

Sitting on top of my bike was this note... Makes it a little easier to race aggresively!

I made it there with enough time to spray on some sun screen, grab my timing chip, and get to the start line! Was kind of hard to think that only 30mins earlier I'd been comatose!

After a little pre-race talk about the late Dick Evans, off we went. Just like clockwork, 5mins later it started to drizzle. The next 1.5hrs riding neutral out to Kunia (Yeah, I think this race has the longest neutral of any race in the world!)... through a few rain showers, the race finally got under way. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I think I made the first acceleration, followed by Tony Lang, Alex Eiler, and later to be joined by David Lelong, Tim Marr etc. The pace was fast, but not insane... We had a few accelerations, but no real serious attacks. About a mile out from the KoM, my team mate David Lelong launched his attack as planned, with riders in our small group saying "Let the junior go..." Perfect! Well, not really.. Tim Marr upped the pace, chasing down Lelong, so I got on his wheel along with everyone else. Once we caught Lelong I told him to go again, but there was some hesitation. I could see one rider from Tradewinds starting to make his move, so I unleashed some watts figuring that if David wasn't going to get the KoM, I might as well take it and keep it in the team. That worked out well with me taking the KoM, with David (Eventual winner of the Junior category) a little bit behind me.

At this point I talked myself out of my typical solo attack, and waited up for the peloton to absorb me. A couple miles later I launched an attack to try and get a break established... No one bridged up. I sat up again, waited to be absorbed, launched and attack... Still no one bridging up. Had this been a mainland race, I'm sure I'd have had a few riders with me by this point. Seen as no one wanted to play, I decided to go for the Jacky Durand type do-or-die solo breakaway. It was only about 75 miles to go, and if I ever win this race, I want to do it in a way that has respect for Dick Evans. No sitting around for 111 miles, then going hard for the final 1 mile. That works for some people (I don't mean any offense with the last sentence), but I'd prefer to ride a more animated race, make it interesting, and try to win in style.

In 2006 I did a solo attempt from Kunia only to be caught before Kahuku. In 2007 I tried a similar move which lasted about 10-15 miles more until Kualoa Ranch.

This time I was pretty determined to make my solo move stick! Going down Pineapple hill I was tucked in doing about 40mph with a few sections of pedaling to keep my speed high. Once I hit the flat section along the north shore I was riding at 29-30mph, eventually slowing down to 25-26mph, then dropping to 20mph going into the wind. All the time during my attack I had a lead moto, and another moto beside me shooting video... That was very cool! Coming out of Sunset beach I managed to get the speed back into the mid 20's and by Kahuku got a time check that I had about 4mins on the peloton! Holy s**t... this might actually work! In the next few miles I had various time checks varying from 1min to 5mins. When I was told I only had 1 minute I was close to sitting up and saving my legs for the rest of the race, but I decided to try and up the pace and just ride the move out to the end.

By Hygienic store I could feel my pace drop, but I kept plugging away. At Valley of the Temples I was told that bad news that my gap was down to a slender 1 minute. I could see the pack chasing behind so I knew my 5mins of fame were coming to and end. I picked up some water and a coke at the feed and kept pressing on as I wanted to get up the climb at valley of the temples before being caught. I don't know why, but I just don't like that climb... It feels slow even on a good day.

Sure enough, just before the top of the climb I was caught, so I tucked myself into the top 5-10 riders. At this point, my left thigh was cramping like never before. The whole top half of my legs was trying to implode. I did my best to try and hide this, standing up to keep the leg moving, and spraying my legs with cold water. Surprisingly I was still able to keep with the lead guys going over Mokapu, through Dump Rd. and up Olomana. It was all going to plan right up until Makapu'u... Alex Eiler put in an acceleration which I think shelled a few guys but I stuck in there... until about 1/2 way up where my legs waved the white "I surrender" flag. I cruised the final 1.5 miles of the race to finish in 7th place. Not a bad finish out of 122 finishers after my solo spell in the wind.

So, not the best of races, but I'm happy that I gave it 120% and left it all on the road. There's nothing worse than finishing a race knowing that you didn't give it everything. I'd rather to have tried and failed, than to have put in a half-assed effort and come up empty handed.

Carl Brooks took the win by about 1/1000th of a sec over Alex Eiler! A tight finish for an unexpected (but very happy) winner - Congrats Carl! Tony Lang crossed the line for 3rd.

I heard some crying about people crossing the center line on the final turn, but wasn't there to witness it, and can't really comment on what did or didn't happen. C'est la vie.

2008 Dick Evans Memorial Road Race
Top 10 Results
1 Carl Brooks M 113 Quick Release 5:01:37.45
2 Alexander Eiler M 53 Tradewind Cycling Team 5:01:37.45
3 Tony Lang M 9 Cambio/Core 5:01:37.55
4 Ray Brust M 66 Boca Hawaii 5:01:38.00
5 Ricky Armstrong M 15 Cambio/Core 5:01:47.75
6 Tim Marr M 205 Boca Hawaii 5:02:41.60
7 Mike Zagorski M 103 Pacific Velo 5:04:09.90
8 Keish Doi M 184 Unattached 5:05:09.70
9 Kevin Kawainui M 52 Tradewind Cycling Team 5:05:10.35
10 Christopher Parmelee M 208 Unatttached 5:05:10.35

That's the 2008 season in the books, and my off-season started right after I crossed the line.