Pacific Raceways- 6/16/09

Last night's PR race was sketchier than a evening art class at your local community college. There was actually a moment I had considered pulling out of the race, something I have only ever done before for injury. Part of the reason was it was a point-per-lap flat race. Basically that means the first two across the finish line each lap, save the first, get 2 and 1 points, additional points for prime laps and the standard fare for the final lap. What you end up with are people jockeying for position every lap like it is a pack sprint finish-- likely the most dangerous part of bike racing. However, this was not the only problem. There is some paving work being done at PR and the west-most corner, corner #1 is pretty tight. If you stay low you run the risk of getting pinched into the lower barrier and if you go wide you run the risk of being pushed into the upper barrier. Nonetheless, the race did go down with no crashes, at least none that I was aware of. Oh and one other thing, we were entirely too many "neutrals" last night. First, we went neutral for the 1-2-3's to pass. Then we caught the 4-5's and they went neutral. Then we re-passed the 1-2-3's only to be re-passed by them once again. Finally we went really neutral and let them get nearly a third-a-lap gap before really going again. It was this passing, re-passing chaos that made me decide to nearly call it a night. It seems that a large part of the problem is the shortened course due to the paving work.

If memory serves there were 5 of us Cucina Frescas in the open Masters race. Erik Olson and I spent most of the night pulling on the front, with pretty much ever other CF coming up from time-to-time. Since I have missed the last 3 races and have slipped from 3rd in the overall to 6th?? so all I was really looking to do was get in a break, chase down breaks and/or start a break. To some degree I accomplished all those goals save the making a break stick. There were a couple of good opportunities but with little cooperation from other riders (and/or knowledge of how to race) they all fizzled. One such was with myself, Erik Olson and an unattached rider. Basically, Erik and I came together after the finish line chaos and Erik took a long pull, I followed, then the unattached guy. However the next time through after Erik's pull the unattached guy shot in behind Erik, pushing me to the left. I hollered, "what the heck are you doing"(or some verbiage thereabout) then to make matters worse, when Erik pulled to the right the unattached guy did not pull through. We were hosed, backed off, noted the guy to avoid, and settled back into the group.

Martin from IJM attacked later that with another teammate and after foolishly waiting a lap for someone else to chase them down I spent a lap-and-a-half chasing them down pretty much solo. I was fine with that but not real happy with a couple teams that hadn't a clue how to chase a break down. Basically, they would follow my wheel, then try to shoot past me akin to a sprint then fizzle 50m later only to settle back onto my wheel. Now, I can see this if your a IJM rider but that was not the case. I dunno what the world they were thinking. Why not put that effort into a concerted pursuit? I must have happened 5, maybe 6 time last night. Crazy, almost comical.

Probably the best chance of making one stick came with two to go. A couple CF riders came up along side me and said to be sure to watch for Martin to go after the last prime. I was figuring he was going to try his usual escape. I saw him go after the sprint and got on his wheel. I was going to ride it until he noticed I was there. He noticed me just before the first turn and I moved up to take a pull. By this time a couple more CF joined the attack. This was actually the end of it all. Once Martin noticed it was 3 CF's and one his desire to work hard diminished greatly on his next pull and we were caught. In hindsight would it have been better for the other CF's to hang back and block??? Dunno, and it does not really matter. That's just a crap-shoot. 3-on-1 in a break seems pretty good but it is worth noting that Marting is clearly a savvy rider and knows where his best chances are and his team's best chances are and a 3-on-1 break is not that great for either.

I settled into the pack for the last lap and tried to maintain between 4th and 8th position. I ended up in a good position #'s wise coming into the last 250m but not a good spot geographically speaking. I was 5th wheel when a large group came up on our left. I moved to the right as my only option and started to get pinched over against the barrier. I held on until the group started to drift to the left, as they usually do after the corner, but it was just 15m or so too late and I ended up 3rd or 4th in the sprint. I'm happy with that in spite of the effort I put out the entire night.

Oh, ya, next time to PR Kat is racing! Woo-hoo.

Blessings, ~Cole