Superweek - Made it Out!

I drove out to Milwaukee yesterday to race in the 40+ (Cat 1/2/3 only) series at Superweek. I’ve been coming out to do at least a week of racing, if not more, for the last 8 out of 9 years. If one is ambitious enough, they can race in 16 straight days. For some reason, I love making the trip and enjoy racing in this series. I guess it goes back to my first year coming out. I was a Cat 4 and was impressed with the way they treated every field, the quality of the competition and just had a ton of fun racing. The second year I came out, I was a Cat 3 and won a 70 mile hilly Road Race further endearing me to the series. I’ve made the trip with teammates. I’ve met new friends and have even stayed with their families. I’ve come out by myself; just like last year, I’m solo this year. I even found out Trish was pregnant with Alex while I was at Superweek. Another bonus is there are a lot of good brewpubs in the area!

I left my house at 5am and planned on hitting Chicago before ‘rush’ hour. It took me just under 10.5 hours to Chicago (~750 miles) which was ~2:30pm local time. No matter what time you hit Chicago you will sit in traffic. I only lost about 1 hour sitting still; very frustrating after sitting in the car so long and only having a short distance left. Unfortunately, there is no way around Chicago. I stop by a beer store to stock up and then headed to the Hotel to check-in. Total time to Hotel room was ~13 hours (not too bad considering the traffic and beer stop). Distance was 850 miles. I only stopped twice on the way to fill up with gas and run in for a pit stop. That packed cooler with sandwiches and drinks really came in handy. I view any stoppage on the way as a ‘waste’ of time.

It was a pretty uneventful ride over. I was only almost run off the road once by a truck driver who was reading something while driving. Somewhere in the middle of Ohio, a construction pickup quickly pulled over to the right up ahead. The working looked left and ran across the road. Problem was, he ran in front of me and the car that was on my right. We both had to lock up our brakes to avoid making him road kill. Idiot worker…this was not even in a construction zone.
Racing starts today and looking outside it’s raining. Timing wise, I may get lucky and the rain my stop by noon. If not, I’ll just be careful and keep my mind on the Brew Pubs I plan on hitting afterwards…