Team. Defined as a group of people linked in a common purpose. Mountain biking isn’t always a team sport. You perform on an individual level, competing with other athletes in a sprint race to be first to the line. This past Sunday, our team showed what it means to be linked together in common purpose.
At the DORBA Fall Series race at Rowlett Creek Preserve, our best overall showing of the season comprised of two 1st place finishes, two 2nd place finishes, two 3rd place finishes, and one 5th place finish. We also fielded the highest number of entries with 14 Adults and 3 Juniors.
Our biggest highlight came with two racing members who didn’t even finish the race. Brad Wendling, a team officer, was having a fast race when he lost control and crashed. He was able to pick himself up and begin racing again when it happened a second, much harder, time. He’s doing better today, but what happened after that crash is something pretty special. Josh Merkel, an original member of the team, was racing in only his 2nd race of the season when he came upon Brad. Instead of continuing, and finishing his race, Josh decided to DNF himself to help Brad out and back to the team tent so medics could check on him. Josh sacrificed his own race for a fellow teammate. Big kudos to him, and a reminder to us all that we’re pretty lucky to have such great teammates.
Sunday also marked another first for the team, when three junior racers stepped into their first ever mountain bike race! Aiden Toombs, and brothers Jacob and William Wendling all competed and had lots of fun racing the 3 mile course.
As for those pretty impressive showings, Minh Nguyen and Keith McDonald finished what they couldn’t do the last race because of mechanical breakdowns, and ended up on the podium 1st and 3rd respectively in the Cat 3 40 – 49 division. The largest division of the event at 49 racers!
In the Cat 3 19 – 29 division, newcomer Jacob Hollings, took 2nd place after a 1st place performance at LB Houston before joining the team. Jacob’s new teammate, Braden Barnett, showed why he’s poised to grab a top spot soon by continuing to move up the rankings with a 5th place finish.
In a newly created division in Cat 3, Jonathan Braddick and Logan Davis competed in the Clydesdale division taking 1st and 9th respectively.
The results kept coming in the last race of the day in Cat 2. Brandon Schrader has had quite the season in the SS division, taking multiple top 5 finishes, but in this race he finally saw the results of his hard work, taking a podium spot in 3rd place. He also holds the top overall team points leader position. The heat didn’t hold back his divisional teammate, Will Jiron, coming in 11th place.
And finally, the “most races completed this season” leader on the team, and oldest member (of which we like to remind him of this all of the time) superman James Henson completed his seventh race, and is a close 2nd in our overall team points leader competition. He finished 2nd in the Cat 2 60 plus division.
Here are the overall results from the race:
- Cat 2 60 plus
- James Henson, 2nd Place out of 2, 2:22.39
- Cat 2 SS
- Brandon Schrader, 3rd Place out of 14, 1:48:25
- Will Jiron, 11th Place out of 14, 2:06:03
- Cat 3 Juniors, 10 and under
- Aiden Toombs, 11th Place out of 18, 0:16:36
- Jacob Wendling, 12th Place out of 18, 0:16:43
- William Wendling, 16th Place out of 18, 0:20:00
- Cat 3 19 -29
- Jacob Hollings, 2nd Place out of 21, 0:49:38 (new member)
- Braden Barnett, 5th Place out of 21, 0:53:21
- Cat 3 30 -39
- Shane Walden, 12th Place out of 40, 0:53:10 (new member)
- Nathan Delahoussaye, 19th out of 40, 0:55:20
- Wes Salas, 20th out of 40, 0:55:22 (new member)
- Brad Wendling, DNF, (crash)
- Josh Merkel, DNF, (helped a teammate after crash, sacrificed his own race to do this!)
- Cat 3 40 – 49
- Minh Nguyen, 1st Place out of 49, 0:49:45
- Keith McDonald, 3rd Place out of 49, 0:50:40
- Cat 3 Clydesdale
- Jonathan Braddick, 1st Place out of 9, 0:54:56
- Logan Davis, 9th Place out of 9, 0:45:29 (new member)
Bearded Women Racing 
James, thanks for the invite to hang with the team. Got a great group of folks. Get well soon, Brad.