Cat 3\4
Conditions were less than favorable at 10am Saturday morning, light mist/drizzle and temps in the mid 40s. A pretty good group of riders showed up but the field was on the small side, only 21 riders. We toed the line with 5 riders and a chance to take 2nd place in the team standings. The race started off pretty moderate, I think guys wanted to see how slick the corners were going to be. As the race started to heat up the C'nauts were sending riders off the front trying to attack and wear down Guido who was in 2nd place in the individual points standings. The team was working well and staying out of trouble. Coming into the 1st prime lap Peter F came to the front and did as monster pull to keep me at the front and out of the wind. I sprinted hard from 1000m and took 2nd, just got nipped at the line by John B, the C'naut, and individual points leader. Not sure why he did that, he had the points all locked up anyways. With about 16laps to go a C'naut takes off on a solo break and I thought about going with it but held off slightly and suddenly found myself caught in no man's land. In cycling you have to make hard and fast decisions, you either go balls to the wall and chase, or sit in and fade back. Well the mistake I made was to sit out there in no man's land for about 3-4 laps contemplating what to do, in the end either choice would have been fine. The next prime lap was coming and I thought I might be able to at least stay out there and nab 2nd in the prime but the pack chassed me down. Dillon was alert to the situation and made a hard power move to jump onto a 4 man train and out sprinted the bunch to nab 2nd in the prime (C'naut was still away) At this point we were tied on points for second place with Central Wheel, with only one CW rider present today our chances looked good. While recovering from my no man's land effort and looking for Dillon to see if he was able to nab the prime a flying Guido, made a break for it and tagging along for the ride was John B and the CW guy. They caught the solo C'naut and suddenly had a solid 10" gap on the field. Joe P and Peter F came to the front and did some good pulls to try and reel them in but the break had to much power. Can't believe the break went and I was not paying attention, I'm usually right up front keeping an eye out for that kind of stuff. The break succeeded and the CW guy nabbed 3rd place. I got a nice draft off of the C'naut train and took the pack sprint for 5th place. 3rd place in team standings is pretty good considering we only had multiple riders in 2 of the 7 cat 3/4 races. Good job guys......looking forward to racing with all of you this year.
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