Allen Endos, Finishes First, First Time

by Allen Forbis

March 5, 2006 -- The venue was close so I, like all of the team, drove up Sunday morning.  The air was thick with moisture and tension.  Tension that erupted into rain as soon as the P/S/E gun went off.  Luckily for me it only lasted about 15 minutes.  My race went off at 1:30.  I was there since 10:00 a.m. dying to get out on course.  I got to see Mr. Morgan bring home 3^rd after having the stomach flu this week and dropping 10 pounds of body weight.  Daryl pulling the oh so stylish wheelie across the finish line to smoke the rest of the single speed class.  Freeze power start his race and get up into the top 10 before entering the single track.  Then it was time for me to get to business.

After my warm up I lined up in a good spot because of my pre-reg call up.  The gun goes off and I miss my pedal on the clip in.  No big deal but out of nowhere a new face is 20 yards off the front.  He was flying and killing everyone.  Fortunately the start at this site is forever long and plenty wide to move up and get in a good position before the wide open downhill into the first single track.  I was in 5^th or 6^th into the first single track that was filled with ups and downs followed by some downs and ups.  The guy that took off was now riding so slow that people in the back were shouting their praises for the easing of the pace.  It was slow enough though that it was making the trail a little hard to ride and I was getting real impatient.  We busted out of the first single track and thanks to some advice from Daryl on line choices I had moved up to third as we entered the feed zone.  This was the magic moment.  My teammates Morgan and Surge were yelling louder than anyone else and gave me an enormous boost.  I decided even though we had been racing for only 3 minutes it was time to go.  I stood up and took off.  I made it into the next singletrack, first and never looked back.  This was the right move for me.  I was in front for the rest of the way and flowed trough turn after turn after turn.  The only person I ever saw again was Matt running through the woods with his shirt off giving me time checks and telling me to get with it.  Except for my sideways endo into some hay bails, it was a perfect race and my first win ever.  I couldn’t have pulled it off without my teammates.