Jay Richards

If it wasn't for the Oftedal bros yesterday, we would probably still be in the parking lot digging in the garbage looking for some food and scaveging the trails for any gel packets. When we pulled into the parking lot at Afton, we drove over some of the crushed/reclaimed ashphalt and a piece went into the tire and we had a flat. Didn't deal with it until after the race. To make a long story short, the O bros were heroes. I was toast from the race and dinging my left thumb in the race, I was pretty much worthless.

Earlier in the week Eric took Jakes bike to Hollywoods to get some tlc and Eric kindly overhauled Jake's fork and threw a big surprise and let Jake use his wheels for the race. Very sweet. Jake had another great race. With the big wave in front of him, he passed the entire wave except for 3.
Sam having fun on the course. Jake said this was his fav pic because he was smiling. Top shelf.
Thanks again guys. Regarding the race. It was very hard. I rode the first two laps pretty conservative and felt like I could of gone harder but I knew I had to save myself for the last two. Third lap I was a little slopply, going down hard once and I think I might of broke my thumb. I don't know, getting it checked out today hopefully. Since this was the first real race for me this year, I was happy with the result. Good training for sure. Afton is, to me, the hardest race of the year. Really the race that I want to be dialed in for is US Nats in Vermont.
O Bros getting it done post race. Lots of drama with the tire change. Lets just say we finally got the spare on and made it home safely.
Which says a lot because when we turned at Richwood, I nailed a deer head on. Didn't see it coming. No time to react other then slam on the brakes, hit the deer, air bags went off, and lost all my trany and coolant fluids. Thankfully no one was hurt. Onstar was calling within seconds and within a hour the tow track came and took the vehicle to DL. We were 4 miles from home and my mom and dad came and picked us up. What a day.