Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Springfield Oaks CX - Sun

For the Sunday race, I got out of the house a little earlier. They didn't change the course too much between the two days, but I still did two warmup laps before the C race. My legs felt pretty tired during the warmup, especially any time there was a little rise.


Saturday night, I decided that I needed to be a little more confident about my racing. There were also a couple of spots on course that I decided I should ride in the drops if they were still there on Sunday.


I lined up near the back at the start again (I actually let fellow Rhinos English Mark and Irish Pete move ahead of me at the start, since they both easily beat me Saturday). The starting pace was definitely slower than Saturday, but I still wound up near the back early in the first lap. As with Saturday, I just tried to keep things steady and smooth. I actually felt stronger during the race on Sunday and my focus was much better.


On Sunday, there were a couple of corners that I really nailed. One in particular was just after the horse barn: I started the corner about 20 feet behind a guy and by the corner exit I was passing him. I just took a better line that allowed me to stay off my brakes and carry my momentum back up the hill. Unfortunately, there were also a couple corners out there that I never felt comfortable with.

Anyway, with about 3 laps to go, I could still see Pete and Mark ahead of me. I wasn't making up much ground, but they weren't totally burying me like the day before. Then with 2 laps to go, I saw I was definitely gaining on Mark (I found out later that he crashed).


I was very close with 1 lap to go; Mark must have decided I was too close, and he suddenly opened up a pretty big gap. I thought it was too soon to really chase, so I just kept my steady pace. I kept gradually gaining, and was getting very close again as we hit the run up. I was thinking I could take him in the next section before the "grunt" hill, but I totally biffed getting my feet into the pedals after the runup! I ended up going down the loose, steep hill that followed with my feet out of the pedals and my rear tire kicking all over the place! That caused me to blow the corner, and I figured that was it, but I caught back up quickly again. I started feeling pretty good about being able to beat Mark at that point.

I got past Mark on the "grunt" hill, and I pushed pretty hard on the rise after that. I'd been dropping people all day here, but Mark stayed with me, and we were pretty much shoulder-to-shoulder. I was on the inside, which was a bad spot for the hairpin into the off-camber section (in hindsight, I should have "drifted" right as we were approaching the corner, so I could take a decent line). Mark took the lead into the off-camber, but he gave me a little space, so we rode the off-camber section shoulder-to-shoulder, with me on the uphill side. (In my opinion, that whole sequence was really freakin' cool!) Mark was now to the inside for the last big right-hander. I'd been passing people all day here too. Mark's line sort of went inside-outside, my line went outside-inside (with less braking) and I carried more speed out of the corner. The corner emptied into the paved finish straight. We were even at the corner exit, but I had more momemtum. From there, I just buried it to the finish and Mark wasn't able to get by me.

So, I ended up 15th out of 27 starters on Saturday. I was really pretty happy with the way I raced, and I was reasonably happy with my placing.

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