Race: Red Hook Crit #5 - 3/24/12

I had plans going in to the race.  Plans seem like a waste of time in hind sight.  The original plan was to head in with my brother since he needed to borrow our mini-van to move some stuff the next day.  We'd go to the race, I would race, focusing on trying to get in front and win the first lap prime, then we would celebrate, sleep, move some furniture and head back home.  In reality, my brother was running late due to a ride he was leading, near enough to the last minute to get me un-nerved as I had to find out the local train schedule and figure out how to get in to red hook.  I was able to get a train that got me to atlantic terminal at a few minutes past seven, met up with my brother who drove his car over to bring us to the race around 7:30, registered, got kitted up, headed over to do some laps only to find out the running race was starting, so no going on course, or crossing the course.  In my mind while sitting on the train, I had figured something like this might happen, so I wasn't too worried about it.  Until I found out there was no way to get over to the ferry terminal where the bathrooms were.  It took me at least ten minutes to find a nice, dark, hipster or cop free corner to water the plants.

The running race finished surprisingly quick, so I did some laps around the course, trying to figure out lines and so forth and warming up the legs.  I stopped early to get a spot up front for the neutral lap.  We rode around the course nice and slow.  I half wished the rest of the race would be nice and slow like that.  I was able to maintain my position up front for the start.  I ended up 3rd row, far right side, just behind the two rows of call-ups.  There was some more room in the second row, but I didn't want to risk possible DQ by moving up into it.  Just before the start, the spotlights went out for some reason or another, and I suddenly found it very hard to see.  The race began, I aced my clip in, but between the dark, tons of camera flashes and just nerves, I found myself sliding back immediately.  I think it was a combination of too great a fear of crashing, and not really being able to tell what was a part of a bike and what was just a shadow from a camera flash.  this continued for the first 1/4 of the first lap, where finally things stretched out enough for me to feel comfortable.  This is a bad thing, though, because that meant it would be basically impossible to move back up into contention as the gaps continued to form.

I found myself in a group of maybe 2 or 3 others, Mattie included, kind of working together to try to catch up to the next group of a couple of guys.  My negotiation of the hairpin turn was always terrible, so it was always slow slow slow, sprint sprint sprint.  Eventually my legs gave up, I gave up, the moto caught up, and I pulled out with a nice little case of track hack for the rest of the night.  Through the night I saw Brean, Heather, Mattie, Keith (who was looking really good out there), my old friend Zachary, and some others that I've forgotten as of this write-up.  I changed clothes, put the bike away, and my brother and I tried to look for a not-too crowded bar to get some drinks and food.  That didn't happen, however, and the rain finally started.  We drove past the after party, which was also very crowded, so we just went with some fast food and passed out for the night.

In conclusion, I am glad that my legs felt recovered from the hill rides and sprints by the day of the race.  I am glad that I was able to get such a good start position.  I need to work on my technical cornering, determining maximum lean angle and such.  I did about as well as I had figured, though not as well as I had hoped.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/161316160