First of all, congratulations to Team USA for really stepping up when even many Americans were in doubt of their ability to pull off the victory! Tedesco would of course be strong having been on a winning team before and knowing how to handle the pressure. Dungey is just coming into his own and really showing that he is a long time removed from the SX season which saw him succumb to the verbal taunts and mind games of one Jason Lawrence. Wow was he impressive! Weimer seemed a little frazzled but still put in a good ride for 8th and with the consistency of RD and IT, thats all that was necessary when you add in the problems for many of the other teams. Which brings me to my motivation for writing about the race.
I realize that in a race where national pride is on the line, the usual onslaught of race loser excuses are a bit elevated but really? Everyone commenting on the race saw the race; we all saw Byrne crash and DNF, we saw Reed get a horrible start in the last race. We saw Cairolli's bike twisted into a pretzel before he even reached the first corner. All of those unfortunate events sucked. Bad luck, karma, divine intervention, cosmic misalignment; call it what you will. I call it racing and perseverance by a under-estimated and under-appreciated US team. No self respecting racer would pull the "luck" card. Racing is unpredicatable, thats why you run all of every race. Racers know the deal when they sign up.(The cliche's are getting thick , I know)
Bottom line is this. A race happened. The USA won for the 5th consecutive time.
Congratulations Team USA!
Good race world, see you in Colorado.
