Well The Cox crit was certainly a good time as per always. I would definatly have to confirm this as being my favorite crit next to my home town crit apart of the Green Mountain Stage Race. 15,000 dollars certainly draws a crowd, in this instance it was A handfull of pro teams and individual pros such as Rite Aid, Successfull Living, Nerac, and several this that and the others.
This race is a blast because it's long, a super fun course with a couple of fast drags, bottle necked corners, and a nice hill.
Typically the race seems to go the same every year. It's super hot and humid, or super rainy, and the race sort of turns into attrition. Starts off fast, we lose some people, then we lose some more people, a crash here, a crash there, a break forms, the field slows down, the field speeds up, we lose more people .... one more crash for good measure and the race is over. This year the field was a little more agressive and what seemed to be a little faster. When the break went off it was pretty thin missing some predominant sprinters. A good few of us figured this wasn't going to stick. However with a couple Neracs, a SL, etc. there were enough people unmotivated to chace. After some instigating from an Australian pro from AIS, and some attacks from myself and others, the pace managed to pick up and people actually started to chase. With some teams with help finally driving things along for the first time in my 3 years doing this crit we actually caught the break.
However not without a fair amount of banging around on the back section. I am convinced the road had become worse than last year as now there were several sections of nasty holes, gaps, and a full on table top. Many of us managed to get fun launches off this however I did whitness a Clnoonan young gun just about endo his rig taking his rear tire about a foot off the ground while nose diving. Interesting. Regardless, the last 10 laps were averaging over 40 miles an hour on the back stretch so that was enough to cause some serious banging around going into the swooping right, and then finally into the hairpin corner to the finish.
Long story short, we caught the bulk of the break the last two laps or so and I manged to make the front split; with whatever I had left after losing a bottle I managed 14th which I was excited about. This is the only crit however where you lust over every next spot as the prize money goes up by about a hundred dollars or more! Off to Fitchburg now for some middle season heat treatment.
Hearing some fellow Van Desslers cheer me on was also a welcomed bonus as im used to having to cheer myself on. Great job to all who raced and thankfully stayed on two wheels.
-A
p.s lets hope for kits soon, 1 jersey and 1 short is making for some very collegiate style fun.
No comments:
Post a Comment