Wow – it is not every day that you get a chance to race your bike on a spectacular speedway normally reserved for cars and motorcycles going well over 150mph! My top speed for the day was just over 40mph, but that was fast enough to make the podium of the Pro/1/2/3 race.
It is also not every day that you get to ride your bike from home to the start of a race. With the race start only 20 miles from my house down a very popular cycling road, I couldn’t resist leaving the house at 7AM to ride Sicard Hollow / Rex Lake road to the Barbers Motorsports park for the Masters 30+ race at 8:30AM. I made it to the front entrance just after 8 and around to the registration area, up the stairs to the registration desk right at 8:15 and was the last official person to register for the race! I ran into my college cycling teammate and friend, Bert Hull (check out his new Warp 9 bikes and components!!!) who graciously pinned on my number. I made it down the stairs and onto the track in time to do one warm-up lap and then the start of the race! Kristine and the kids drove out to make it just after the start of the race to cheer me on.
The Masters 30+ field was very strong with about 30 riders and constant attacks. I covered a lot and launched one or two of my own. It all came back together when Travis Sherman (Warp 9) and Terry Duran’s (Citigroup) late race attack got brought back with half a lap to go. I found myself on Terry Duran’s wheel going into the sprint, but when I pulled out to come around him I just couldn’t quite get on top of the sprint to do it and managed to get passed by two other people in the process! It was still very close with a photo finish separating all of us in the top 4. Terry Duran was the winner, and he deserved it as he was riding super strong. A pixel-width (maybe 1 mm) separated him from Will Hibberts (Alabama Masters/Bob’s Bikes). Check out the amazing photo finish on the ride to live website:
After the race, I cruised home at a very easy relaxing speed taking almost an hour and 15 minutes to ride the 20 miles back home while Kristine and the kids drove down to Highland Lakes for our church easter egg hunt. I spent a relaxing day working on topocreator.com and then at about 2:45, we loaded up the kids’ bikes and my bike to head back to the track for my second race – the Pro/1/2/3 race.
Here’s my race report that I sent out to the team:
We had a strong contingent of six riders lining up at the start of the P/1/2/3 race. Lots of riders in the race with probably close to 60 guys. Team Type I had three strong riders. Hincapie Development had a squad. Tristar/Warp9 had a lot of riders, too. Our pre-race strategy was to cover moves early and then be aggressive in the second half of the race. Sounded perfect to me since I had raced earlier in the day in the Masters 30+ race. Everybody rode strong covering moves. Every time I saw somebody launch off the front and then one of us cover it – I thought to myself “I sure love having a team strong enough to be in every break!” I only covered maybe one or two moves and bridged across to Ty in one of his many break attempts. On the last lap, I worked my way to the front and hopped onto the back of the Team Type I train but then realized that would push Sammy one farther spot back so I decided he would be better off on the back of their train and I would go for it on the last hill. I attacked hard and got a good gap on the field except for Darrell O’Quinn who saw the jump and got right on my wheel. I drilled it as hard as I could not knowing at the time that Darrell was on my wheel. I kept waiting for the sprint to come around, but it only ended up being Joe who saw the move and left his leadout train to bridge across and then take the victory and Darrell coming around me at the end. So I came in third with Sammy winning the rest of the field sprint for fourth. Lennie and Stuart made it into the top 20 with Darryl attacking a lot and making it into a lot of breaks – but the field was reeling everything in. Jacob survived the beatdown!
I’m still trying to get used to the Garmin Edge 705 features and every now and then I think that Start/Stop will take me to the next Lap even though there is a nice button labeled “Lap”. So suffice it to say that I managed to record my HR data for the ride to the race and my HR data for the ride home from the race, but I exactly missed my Masters 30+ race data!!! Grrr. But I did get it straight for the P/1/2/3 race, so here is my HR data for the afternoon race:
- I attacked here to bridge to a break with Ty Stanfield (Kenda Pro Cycling)
- Here is my attack on the last hill, look at the spike in my heart rate. Amazing what adrenaline of the moment will do!!!
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