Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Del Mar Crit 3 - 39th Place

Well, my fun with wheel issues continued on this day.

I came into this weekend's two races feeling like I was in prime form to get a top 5. It didn't really workout that way on this day.

Because this was the 3rd race in the Del Mar Crit series, and because one of our SDBC guys (Doug Krutil) was in the top 10 in series points; our goal for the day was to try to get Doug across the line first. Along the way we wanted to ensure that he didn't have to work any harder than necessary and even try to get him some of the series point primes if we could (a prime is a race within the race - the race director will ring a bell and announce what the leader on the next lap wins. The prize could be some series points, merchandise, etc.). So my personal goal for the race was to work really hard, get in a great workout, work for Doug and try to be right there at the end.

Today's race was a 50 minute affair, so it was a little longer than we normally go. It also had 3 very sharp corners and 2 long straight aways, so it was fairly technical.

I started out feeling quite strong and with about 15 minutes gone the call went out for a series point prime. I was near the front with Doug so he and I took off and I led him out for most of the lap. With about 3/4 of the home straight to go he pulled out from behind me and sprinted for the line. Unfortunately he wasn't strong enough to win it.

I spent most of the rest of the race working hard at the front of the field for a lap or two, then dropping back and catching my breath at the back for a few laps and then working back to the front. Repeating this for 50 minutes takes a lot out of you, that's for sure.

When it came down to the end of the race I wasn't too near the front. I at least thought that I would be able to power past some folks and get into the top 20, but no matter how hard I worked I only seemed to be going backwards. During the first quarter of the cool down lap I looked down at my rear tire and it was near flat. Further inspection revealed a slow leak that was likely the reason that I was so slow the last couple laps.

No worries though, I raced really hard, felt very strong, led some laps and we did lead one of our guys out for a prime win (just not Doug).

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