I came into the race just off of 9 days of full rest, and that and my first time racing crits with the Cat3s had me a little nervous. I also slipped on the curb while unloading the team tent and turned my ankle - no real injury, but a bad omen (and all the sympathy I got from Chris was "You can't get hurt, you're supposed to be my bitch for this race!
") The Comprehensive Racing guys got a well deserved call-up for organizing, but since I was right behind them and many of them were not "front of the pack material," I got shuffled backwards on the first lap. Mid-pack during laps 1-5 was a festival of chops, shoulder bumping, and sketchy line choices. Between my lack of confidence and these shenanigans, I ended up in the last third of the pack. There weren't any really sharp turns to cause major surges, so I figured I'd sit back there for a while until things settled down, then move up. This gave me a view of some fairly entertaining events, the highlights of which both involved questionable choices but good handling by the B2C2 team:
- One of the B2C2 guys got a plastic bag stuck on his rear dropout (on the non-drive side) and rode the first half of the race with it flapping in the breeze. Some time around mid race, one of his teammates (Colin R, I think) was finally able to lean down - mid-pack, mind you - to remove it.
- Colin R misjudged turn 2, and almost went into the traffic island, locking up his wheel and skidding on his unclipped cleat to stay upright.
Anyway, sometime around mid race, things seemed to have settled down, so I started trying to move up. But the pace was consistently high enough that simply gunning it up the straight section (the standard tactic in previous years' cat4/5 races) was completely ineffective. After a few more laps, by watching Rob, I found that the inside lines on the turns were fast and pretty open, so I started to follow him and work my way up. We were mid-pack by 8 to go when the carnage happened.
The race was neutralized, and those of us caught in/behind the crash were at the back of the stopped group. We then sat for 10-15 minutes, waiting for the ambulances to take care of the badly hurt guys, before restarting for a 5 lap death sprint to the finish. Starting from the back, I had little chance of getting into position for much of anything - a fact not aided by the realization on restart that I must've flipped down to my little ring at some point - so I just tried to stay hooked onto the wheel in front of me and rolled in for 65th.
It was a bit of a disappointment for me, as I had the fitness to do better and I would have liked to contribute more. But at least my teammates acquitted themselves well: Chris rode his usual quality race, Jacob continues to show himself to be a hell of a rider, and Todd and Rob hung in despite their "undertraining." It was a fun night, though a bit of a strange ending to the road season.
