3/24/07 by Matt Brooks
Ok so here it is. Today we rolled in with Steve P, Noah, Doug, and myself. The course was nice and fast, they even cut out the mid ohio overpass part so the laps were shorter then we had once thought. Our field in the 3/4 game would be doing 19 laps. It started out pretty together and thats just about how it ended. I wish i could say we had a better plan, however we didn't get together until the starting line. When we were at the starting line I said I would be sitting in the field the first few laps to see how things were going. We all kind of just went with that. The total field was around 35-40 people. Noah attacked a few times then he blew i think because we didn't see him until after the race. (but its cool he will have his day on the hills soon.) Steve P, Doug, and I kind of shifted around in the field all race. After we saw nothing would be getting away from this field we just tucked in and stayed out of the wind. Avg speed was 23mph with a back side reaching into the mid 30's.
We got down to 5 laps to go, then 3 laps, then 3 laps (yay peoples counting skills hahah) and then to final lap. My idea was to find Steve P and give him a leadout try to get us a win, everything was going good until the last little grade up before a turn that leads into the headwind sprint....thats when i was looking around for steve and saw him crash. It cut about 9 guys off or slowed them down. The field kept their pace and headed into the turn. Doug was behind steve but still up, Though he was off the back now. So I thought about what Fetty said about coming to a race "To Race" so i got the wheel of the last guy and headed towards the last 200m solo. Four guys went far right and started their sprints way early. Some followed them I just started to pick my pace up some following the guy in front of me until he blew and then i caught another wheel and did the same. People were blowing up all over the place and the left side had a sweet, sick opening up. So I was like well shoot lets hit it. I shifted up and went for it. Did better then I thought I made up alot of places in the sprint and ended up getting 4th. Doug Got about 10th, Steve is fine just sad he crashed because I have a feeling we could have had a shot at winning the race, if his legs still had it in them.
On another note, Steve Drake and Seldin did the 4/5 game. Steve was in the top 10 somewhere from what seldin was saying. Seldin had a break with about 4 laps to go ..but he just didnt have the legs this early in the season to hold off the field he said. It was hard to hold off any field with the speedy backside of the course. Props to seldin for staying away for something like 3 laps good stuff. Both groups good job, I think we made the best of the cards we were dealt. Cheers, Matt