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Monterey, Calif.- Most of the racers couldn’t think about winning when they pulled up to the start line of yesterday’s men’s pro NRC circuit race at Sea Otter. What they had to first focus on was the wind. With gusts blowing down the crowd barriers in a matter of seconds, riders like Gustavo Mendez of Kahala- La Grange were caught off-guard by the chaos. “I’m worried about it in the descent and the cork screw because I think its going to toss guys around,” said Mendez who was shivering from the freezing cold air being blown all over.

Nevertheless, all of the men pulled up to the line and waited for the countdown. The field included many riders that hold impressive resumes including Rory Sutherland of Health Net-Maxxis. The race was exciting from the beginning with an early breakaway. However the real excitement came when a breakaway was formed with Michael Grabinger Jr, Brian Jensen, and Brad White, all of Successful Living. However there was one more rider who managed to jump on as well; David Clinger of Rock Racing. “Clinger came across when Bryan and Brad were already off the front together, right in the crosswind at the bottom of the cork screw. I just rode his wheel, I didn’t even know that we had a gap on the field until we were almost close to the finish line. At that point, I looked back and realized that we were almost ready to catch Bryan and Brad,” said Grabinger. The group of four gradually made their way around Laguna Seca, breaking farther and farther apart from the main pack. “I’ve been in that situation a lot of times with three or four guys and your the only guy from your team” “They were so confident that they were going to win the sprint, you know they could box me in and put me in the barrier. They just set tempo to the line and I just need a little bit more speed work and I’ll be going a little better.” “I told them I wasn’t going to be too aggressive. I said if you guys start attacking then ok we’ll have to fight this out’”I gotta work on a little bit of the bike positioning stuff. I’m a little high on the handlebars and my sprint doesn’t have the torque I usually have. It feels great climbing, so I’ve got great power in the saddle” “When we got a minute I was surprised. After we got a minute we were rolling through at a gradual pace and after that we had the race.”__ “With about four or four laps to go we talked it over” “It was incredibly windy today. Last year I did this race and coming down the cork screw was extremely fast and today we actually had to pedal down it. We were pulling through down it.”"We had done a few counter attacks as a team. Bryan was off solo and Brad went off on the cork screw and then Clinger reacted to it pretty quickly” “Our team does have a lot of experience on this course. Knowing that it breaks up, our plan was to ride really aggressively, cover moves, and hope that we could get a guy in ever move. We didn’t exactly plan to have three guys in that one move, but once it happened its obvious that we have to roll with it and it was a really good scenario for us.”"We were worried about him. We had talked a few scenarios over and he was talking to us on the radio. I guess when it came down to it we figured we had the confidence to do a lead out in the end and pull off the win and that’s what we did. ” “Brad was designated to be the first lead out guy and Bryan the second. When we got to the last few corners Brad picked it up and Bryan, with about 200 meters to go, took off and had tried staying in his draft and coming around at the last second.” “We didn’t talk a whole lot. We didn’t do a whole lot of talking.