Kansas City, KS - Covered in mud, with a big smile across his face, Tim Johnson crossed the line first on the messy, snow-covered Wyandotte County, Kansas, course to earn his second elite U.S. National Cyclocross Championship. He won his first elite title in 2007 at the same locale.

"The conditions were bad, which I was happy about," the noted "mudder" said. "It was very, very gooey. The course was covered in mud and ice. There was sloppy mud literally frozen to the frame of my Cannondale. It was brutal.

"I was basically going as fast as I could without crashing," he added. "For most of the race, I had my head down concentrating because at any moment you could crash and end up on your butt."

Johnson, who is sponsored by Cannondale, Leer and Cyclocrossworld.com for the cross season, employed frequent bike changes during the race to avoid mechanical problems resulting from the drive train and brakes becoming too caked with mud. He also succeeded in avoiding major crashes that wreaked havoc on the rest of the field, including defending national champion and race favorite Ryan Trebon (Kona), who was literally knocked out of the race by another rider in the field who crashed and fell into him, momentarily knocking him unconscious.

Johnson overcame a slow start and over the course of the first couple laps, worked his way back to the front of the race. In the final laps, the race came down to a two-man duel with Belgian-based Jonathan Page (Sunweb-Pro Job), himself a multiple elite cross national champion.

Johnson put in his decisive attack at the start of the second to last lap, overtaking Page for the lead. But Page kept Johnson close. However, a bobble following Johnson through one of the numerous and treacherous turns on the course sent Page into the tape. The miscue gave Johnson a ten-second gap that he held by keeping it upright over the final lap to the finish.

Along with his bike-handling skills in rotten conditions, Johnson also credited his pre-race preparation for his success Sunday. "I rode eight laps of the course before the race started," he said. "The course was so bad and so tricky, you couldn't do well in this race without pre-riding the course. I was out there in a full Patagonia rain suit slogging around it."

Johnson will don his new stars and stripes jersey in Europe, at the final three world cups races before the cross world championships in Treviso, Italy in late January.