Nationals Crit

Last race of the week. On the roads in the infield of Churchill Downs. Interesting location...sort of cool, but at the same time not. You can't even see the roads we were racing on from the "real" race course. But a nice closed course, wide roads and easy turns made for a tactical course rather than a technical one. Of course, with 9 of us and only 1 team with 2 members in the field, tactics weren't quite the order of the day either.

When we arrived at the parking area, things were a bit confusing but we sorted it all out. The bad part was getting there just as they were taking someone from the 35-39 field out by ambulance....never the sort of thing you want to see at a race. Rode to the infield to check out the situation and found Robin, Leslie J & Wendy. Leslie J had gotten taken down at the finish by the women sent off to hospital. Leslie was banged up with ice on hip, hand, elbow and a bloody nose. Bike not so good - busted zipp 404, busted front brake (caliper was no longer attached to the head tube), busted saddle, and given the situation with the brake, a suspect fork.... Hard to enjoy the silver medal after that.

We had nine signed up for ours. Small fields can be problematic. Generally you don't have to sweat safety as much, but they can be hard. We did 40 laps, even though the original info said we were to do 39. What's one more lap?

Michelle Scharf, Peachtree Bikes out of Atlanta, went practically from the whistle, getting a gap right away. After a couple of laps, I decided I'd try for the solo bridge. No trouble getting a gap on the field but I just couldn't get enough out of my legs to get up to her, so I sat up. I knew I'd pay for that early effort, even with a warm up, my body tends to prefer such efforts much later in the race. I was racing with some fools though, they responded when Tracy Tolson looked around and said "who's going to chase that down?" by chasing after Michelle. My answer would have been: "You want to keep the stars-and-stripes jersey, you go get it."

Michelle got reeled in and the race went on relatively quietly for a bit. Then Tracy, who'd spent no energy thus far, made her move with Tamara Bessette joining in. I was still recovering at the back of the field and the responding surge left me behind the chase. I didn't panic. I rode hard and waited to see what developed.

Ended up with a mostly useless rider on my wheel, she tried to help but every time she went to the front the pace dropped off a good bit. I only did it when I was really feeling the need to catch a little recovery. I could hear the commentary and knew that soon Tracy and Tamara would be coming up on us...it definitely sounded like they would eventually lap the entire field so I made my plan to get back to where I belonged....with the primary field.

The moto came around us and I got ready. T & T came along, warning which side they were passing on and I jumped on quickly. No problem sticking with them. I told them that I would work if they wanted me to, otherwise, I'd just stay out of their way. No response. I think that they couldn't believe that I was able to stay with them. Guess they've never had their race legs arrive a few laps into the race before....

My plan worked and we arrived at the primary field. Now I at least had a fair chance at a bronze medal. The catch was made coming into the finishing stretch and we hadn't even made it to turn one when suddenly disaster struck. I saw a bike a couple in front of me waver...no reason why that I could see. That bike caught Tamara's front wheel...down she went. I was on her wheel, but moved right, swerving around her while the rider who'd been to my left (Webcor) slammed into her and went down.

Tracy had been ahead of the crash so she took advantage of the situation, gapping the rest of us again. I tried to get to her, but just didn't have enough, neither did Michelle. The two of us worked hard anyway, trying to close the gap. The officials botched it when they returned the crashed riders to the field, returning them to Tracy's wheel instead of the back of the main group.

Personally no issue with Tamara being put in up with Tracy, she had the silver medal at least but deserved a shot at the gold. But no one else should have gotten that. And to be precise about it, neither should have Tamara, but like I said, I got no issue with that.

By the time it all shook out, some Wells Fargo woman ended up between T & T and me & Michelle. Don't know how that happened as so far as I know she was in the group T, T & I caught before the crash and she certainly didn't bridge up to Tracy, she'd have had to come around me & Michelle and I know we wouldn't have missed that happening. Maybe she got tangled up in the crash and got put back in with Tamara and the woman from Webcor.

So in the end Michelle and I were working hard for the other two medals. I botched the finish, responding a hair too late when Michelle jumped going into the final pair of turns (almost a single 180 but not quite). I came damn close to closing the gap but couldn't quite catch her before we got to the line. Close enough to be assigned the same time. :-)

The officials said that our race was the fastest of the day. We had a dry course, which was not true for the earlier races (some of whom raced in the rain) but got a lot of Kentucky wind in our race. Somehow I didn't expect it to be windy here, but it sure is.