In the preceding days, TMBEquator took victories at Folsom and Mount Hamilton, so we hoped to make it a Memorial Day weekend sweep with a victory at the annual Memorial Day Criterium in Morgan Hill. The roster for the day was Garrett, Roman, Travis, Andy, and Dana.
We didn't have the biggest team in the race, so we knew we had to race with our heads up in order to avoid chasing down breakaways. The first 20 minutes of the race were very aggressive, with attacks coming from Herbalife, VuMedi, Clif Bar, and Coretechs Elite. Mike's Bikes came ready to race, so Roman, Travis, Andy, and/or Dana were in all the moves.
A large crash on the back straight of the course after the midway point seemed to take some of the fire out of the peloton. From that point on most teams were content to let things come down to a field sprint. This was fine by us. Once the laps were down to single digits, Garrett and Dana found Roman's wheel, who cut a smooth line for Dana and Garrett to follow. Behind Garrett, Travis and Andy were battling with the other teams' sprinters to keep Garrett's wheel clean.
In the final lap, Roman ramped the pace up and took Dana and Garrett straight to the front. 350 m before the final corner, Garrett saw Herbalife coming up on the left and yelled for Dana to hit the gas. Dana was ready for them, however, and accelerated hard. He matched their pace and pulled away with authority. It was still a long way to the finish, so Garrett stayed on Dana's wheel for as long as possible. Another wheel was coming up on the left, 75 meters before the final corner, so Garrett decided that it was time to go. It was a drag race to the line, but in the end he wasn't able to hold off Tobin Ortenblad, who is on fire this season with wins already at Cat's Hill and Sea Otter.
