I have done this race plenty of times. I love to do this race, it’s always over Memorial day weekend and its in honor of Barry Wolfe.That day I was suppose to have 4-5 teammates but none of them showed so I was left to do the dirty work and attempt to win the race by myself. The race got pretty aggressive with two large breaks that didn’t contain Tony Cruz or myself. The last break being more serious had every team represented, again but us two. I figured Tony wanted to wait and see what I would do and I was thinking the same thing. So after the break got out of sight, I got on the front and did a two lap pull to bring the break within striking distance to the field. As I started to pull off I just knew Tony would jump me and maybe I would miss out. However Tony was to far back as I chased and by the time he got to the front to make his move, I had already recovered.

The field is all back together and now it’s a fight to hold position for the sprint. With 1 to go, I make the right hand turn on the outside and from the right I was hit pretty hard by someone who, I’m assuming forgot to turn. This guy knocked me off both pedals, knocked my chain off and twisted my shifter. I fell on my top tube and banged my knee into the stem while slamming my shoes onto the concrete. There was about 2-3 seconds where I thought I was hitting the ground. But I saved it. Got back on the saddle, clipped back into my pedals and rolled the chain on. At this point it’s a split of about 8-10 guys just about 300 meters in front of me.

Sterling was also involved in the crash and as he got back going, I hopped on his wheel and with 500 meters to go, we caught the group.I didn’t hesitate; I jumped the group right as they looked left with Sterling on my wheel. I’m not even sure if they knew I went right. I came out the last corner first, pulled up on my left leg to sprint and my cleat came out of my pedals and my knee hurt like hell. I later looked and my cleat and it was absolutely shattered when I had the mishap. I cross the line first and with so much pain. My knee immediately swelled up and gave me a scare.