It’s not often that you get the opportunity to go to a 12 hour race that’s ~10 miles from your house, so I was excited to enter the 12 Hours of Stank @ Nesbit Park in Bartlett. Since I’ve been in post-season break mode since Oak Ridge, I wasn’t feeling particularly ready for a 12 hour solo race. No worries, though, because Carter, Ryan, and I decided to form a relay team.

We couldn’t have asked for better race-day weather (ok, so I was a little bit cold, but I can’t really complain). We decided that I’d ride the opening lap since I’d likely have the fastest lap times. Even with a slip up on some Blue Trail roots (first of several falls of the day), I still managed a lap time of close to 53 minutes.

At the start line (side note… dang, I look skinny here!):

We swapped single laps all day. Unfortunately, Ryan had a flat tire on one lap and a broken chain during the next. The time it took to repair those mechanicals meant that we’d each complete 4 laps (otherwise, I would have gone out for a 5th sometime before the cutoff of 9:00pm).

Steve is my co-pilot:

Even so, we still won the Co-ed 3-person relay division of the race (ok, I’ll admit- we were the only entry… though I still think we kicked a little butt!)

Post race photo: