Category: 4
Result: 2nd

As Scott already mentioned, we both woke up way to early for the hour long drive out to Santa Cruz. I thought one of the benefits of upgrading was the luxury of starting a bit later in the day, guess not. Getting to the race course as early as we did allowed us to get rock star parking just down the street from registration and start line. My one complaint about this race is this: my race started at 8 a.m. and registration didn't open until about 7:30. I think it should have opened at 7 to allow for warm-up time.

The race start was fairly mellow, with the one slow wipe-out on the 180 off-camber turn about three or four laps into the race. Things stayed pretty easy until the bell was rung for the first prime. The pace picked up to a proper race pace, and things started to get fun. A couple of the Webcor guys strung out the pack of 18 riders just after the 180 and I was in the first couple of wheels going into the back portion of the course.

Up the hill, nobody was really putting in a hard effort, so I took the opportunity to pick up the pace to see who would follow. Nobody did, but I put in a decent sprint anyway and took the first prime. The pack wasn't too far behind, so I decided to sit up and come back to the group as it was still fairly early in the race. Things mellowed out again mostly due to nerves from the wet course. Nobody wanted to come around me to do some pulls, so I managed to slow the bunch down to about 14 mph on the straight after the hill.

The next prime lap, the Berkeley guy that ate it in the beginning went off the front in a huge effort that nobody wanted to chase. I didn't go because I didn't want the prime (Defeet slipstream shoe covers), and something told me that the guy wouldn't stay gone for more than a lap. Sure enough, I almost caught the dude on the climb the next time around. Another rider came around me to finish off the break and bring things together again. A few laps later, a $20 cash prime was announced and I wanted it, so I got to the front (actually, I was never more than two wheels from the front, so I didn't really "get to the front") and drove the pace up the whole lap and coming to the hill, I put in a big effort that nobody wanted to follow, so I just rode it in, watching over my shoulder to make sure nobody tried anything cheeky on me, and prime #2 was in the bag.

Just before taking the prime, I was thinking about packing it in after the prime, as the race wasn't good for points, and I had already won a couple of things. Two things kept me in the race: #1 the fact that when I looked back, I had a bunch of seconds on the pack, and #2, Scott was cheering me on as well as Casey Kerrigan over the loud speaker. I think this was at 6 to go, so I spent a few laps by myself with a max gap of about 15 seconds. After the hill, I followed him for a second or two then decided it was time so I gave it a couple of gears and went for it. I don't think I've ever gone deeper than I did just then. I managed to come around the guy so we were neck and neck and, in my delerious and painful sprint, I saw two orange cones, knew that I wasn't ahead of the dude, and threw my bike to get my wheel ahead of his. I beat his wheel, but managed to do it about 10 yards too soon. What a crappy feeling that was when I saw that I had picked the wrong set of cones. To make matters worse, Casey yelled out that I had sat up just before the finish line and sorta gave up on the sprint. If he only knew...

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