Category: 4
Result: Top ten

This is a flat four corner standard crit with all right turns. My favorite. I got a start around the top 10 and stayed there for about the first 10 minutes. Then when the first prime bell rang, I saw this WTB guy that is really strong and goes for primes pass me after turn 1. I grabbed his wheel and he pulled me up to 2nd going into the corner 4. Then he gassed it and moved to his left. However, there was a guy next to me on my left so I couldn't get in the WTB guy's draft immediately. By the time I was I was behind him he already had a gap, so I sat up. I reintegrated with the pack and moved back to about 20th to recuperate.

After I recuperated I tried to work my way back up through the field. Nothing exciting happened except for yells to "hold your line", etc. With 2 to go I moved up to about 5-7th wheel by skirting the pack on the final straight. The pack was going kinda slow so it wasn't too difficult. Then, just after starting the last lap, I felt something hit my rear tire and then the noise of carnage behind me. I'm pretty sure I was going straight so I don't think the crash was was my fault. After the race I talked to a friend that was a couple wheels in back of me at the time of the crash. He said he saw someone bounce off a couple people, then go down taking about 10-15 people, including my friend, down with him. So who knows....

Back to the final lap. On the back-straight in between turn 2 and 3 I was about 6-8th wheel, but was boxed in with a rider on each side of me and I didn't know what to do. I saw a small gap behind the rider to my left so I let him pass me then took the outside line. This put me at about 10th. I think I should have just stayed put and waited for the final straight for people to fan out? Thoughts? Anyway, between turn 3 and 4 I gunned it up the left side of the pack but only passed 2 riders. On the final stretch, I grabbed someone's wheel for about 100 feet, but I left it way too early and didn't have enough to pass him.

I had a good race but made a couple mistakes on the final lap: I should have been more patient about being boxed in and need to be more patient before deciding to leave a wheel on the finishing straight.

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