Watsonville 35+/45+ Race Report

Clark threw out the idea to me that a team TT effort off the front might be fun to try, but alas, Clark wasn't able to make it to Watsonville. The general strategy was to use our numbers to our advantage. Attack where possible, cover when necessary and disrupt any chase attempts to teammates up the road.

The race started off fast and furious. It took a couple of laps of intensity to get used to the turns and the best lines through them. Imagine trying to figure that out while redlining?!? Not much fun. I stayed mid-pack and could see most of the action at the front.

Soon I found myself coming up the hill to the start/finish with a lot of momentum. I carried this momentum and attacked down the right as people caught their breath from the hill. Nobody went with me, so I shut it down after a minute or so. Back to the pack for a bit of recovery.

With about 7 laps to go (can't fully remember), the same situation happened, so I attacked again. This time Tracey Colwell (Webcor) decided to bridge across. It took him a bit to latch on, but once on my wheel we worked well together. Then Eric Easterling (Sierra Pacific) crossed the gap. On his heels was our own Chris Wire.

We were a pretty cohesive break as we continued to hammer. I think we all understood that if we didn't work well together, we'd be doomed and our break would fail. We grew the gap to probably around 15-20 seconds, but it felt much closer; I didn't look back at all, just kept my focus on going forward.

Coming into the last lap I knew Chris had the best opportunity to get the team a win. Our break slowed a little coming out of turn #2 and I got to the front and drove us hard through the next three turns. Chris rolled the dice and jumped hard right before the last corner. I was completely gassed and couldn't do anything but watch Chris and the others go at it for the line.

I crossed the line fourth and pretty elated with my finish. This result confirmed a few things and definitely is a building block in the large scheme of things.