I know that this is so late that it is kind of a moot point, but its more for my records now. I’ll keep it short. The day started off gloomy; low 50′s and a little rain. It had cleared up by the time we lined up for the Cat 3 race, and the course was drying up. We did embro up the legs, and that made it nice. The officials blew he whistle,a nd instantly I was in the back half of the field of 50+ people. I spent the first two or three laps trying to move up while pondering how this had happened. Meanwhile, team el capitan, Dan Netzer, was on the front setting a blistering pace. After five or six laps I made it up to the front ten or so, and took my place. I attacked once or twice, but to no avail. Then Dan went and three or four went with him. I took my place on the front seeing that 3 sports, Wholefoods, and HPC (all the big teams/ teams with #’s) were in the break, but then for some reason their teammates started to chase. As shown in Dan Gibson’s video, this puzzled me, and I continued to pace while staying towards the front of our group and then it happened. one of the HPC guys who was chasing his teammate down lost his wheel in the 90 degree turn at the base of the hill and went down. I might have accidentally kicked him trying to avoid running him over as i went up into the grass to avoid him, and sow my amatuer cross skills. I jumped back on course and hauled myself up the hill.
The field was now split, with a group of 15 off the front, and the rest about a half lap back myself included. I was now at a conundrum; do i chase to catch the group that contains all the BAR points and my teammate or do i pace the field and let Dan do his thing. I decided the teammate thing to do would be to sit on the front and pace. This lasted for a lap until I looked over at the front group, and saw Dan attack and take three guys with him. As soon as I saw a decent gap between him, and what was now the chase group I kicked it into high gear and started to bring the field to the chase group. It took a bit of work among a few of us over about half the race to catch the chase group, but we did, and with 6 laps to go. This gave me a chance to recover a bit before the finish. Dan and them were now a good minute or so away, and we would not be catching them so I sat in and waited. As we came around for the bell lap the pace picked up, and the real race began. We meandered up the hill, around the sweeping left turn, through a chicane, and down the hill for the final sweeping left, a small straight, and then another chicane before the 250m stretch to the finish. A few of us knew that the real race was to the chicane, and that whoever was in the lead there would most likely cross the finish first. As we went down the hill the front of th field sat up in the head wind, and I used this chance to attack. I went off the front, and gave it everything i had. Mickey Turner and someone else caught me at the chicane and passed me. I crossed the finish third in the sprint and 7th overall, and found out my teammate, Dan, had won. It was a good day.
