12hrs of Sac

Did this race last year and it was a lot of fun, so i wanted to do it again this year. Left saturday morning at 6am for the 3hr drive to Springfield. After a few gas station stops to load up on ice and some energy drinks and to fill the tank so I didnt have to on the way home I was at the race site. Found a good spot to set up and plan out what I wanted to do for the day, lots of things I was wanting to try out. So the race started like usual line up for the run. normaly I would take my time on the run and just set a easy pace off of the start get into a zone for the rest of the 12hrs. But not this race, this race I wanted to go hard for the first hour and then set into a pace that I thought I could do for the granny 24. So the race started and I jumped up front with Doug Long and Nathan not a real hard pace but we pretty much dropped everybody else pretty quick. This course was totally different then last year they added 1 1/2 half miles of new single track, it looked like they just built it like last week or something! very cool! The course was pretty technical very tight and twisty with some serious fast technical sections.they said it was about a 6 mile loop. So we came in the first lap together witch was hard to beleive the fastest lap of the day. Doug went really hard on the second lap but flatted towards the end or he would of got it. The race went really fast tried out some drink mixtures, (grapefruit juice, gatorade and perpetium with a endurolite every hour and got to have a little NOS energy drink (very bad) but I love the stuff. The race went perfect never any major problems, about 4hrs in I got a flat on the front tire but I got the stans to seal, the only problem was when I got back to the pits to air it up the valve on stans strip blew out. Lucky for me Brian Adams and his wife and there teamate were set up next to me, I owe them big for fixing my tire. I had a extra rim that I put on the bike, and they fixed the flat for me while I went out, I never put that one back on I had 2.3 on there now and it felt better so that is what I stayed with, and since I never used that tire again I stayed pretty much self supported but mentally it was nice to know I had another tire ready if I needed it, thanks greatly! By this time the course was pretty much flat city if you got out of this race with out a flat you should play the lottery!! By 7hrs in I pretty much had a lap or two on the solo field and wasnt to far back off of the teams and the pace felt to good. Every now and then somebody would come from behind and it was cool trying to stay ahead or chase, night time made it real fun, had a few fast laps just to keep things interesting, this course was awesome at night. So I stopped the race a little after 11pm was about 2 1/2 laps up on the closest person. This race was a lot of fun and a good warm up for the 24. These guys put on a great race, give out tons of free stuff and pay big, to big!!