First race in Nebraska and it was a blast! Right away I gotta say that Roxzanne and Ryan Feagan and all the volunteers did an awesome job putting this together. It was really fun and easy going. Plus FREE series t-shirts and FREE burgers after for the racers!
They sent us around through a grassy field before getting into the singletrack which was just long enough for the group to spread out a little. Sitting at the start I noticed a huge mass of CAT 2 riders. At last minute upon request Roxy split us into two groups Cat 2 Open and Cat 2 35+....that was really nice because we didn't have to battle with others on the course that we were not racing against.
At the start I settled into about mid pack trying not to kill my legs...I wish I would have pushed a bit harder...two riders in front of me was one that couldnt keep the pace he started at and held three of us up long enough for the lead group to disappear. It was very hard to pass. Finally after the guy behind me got pretty antsy, and vocal, the guy gave us just enough room to smoke past him and try to catch that pack.
This course really played into my current strengths...fairly tight and twisty with some good sprinting into hard braking/drifting turns...smooth is fast ;) Being able to apply some skills from auto racing, I was able to keep a lot of momentum through the course. I caught a few guys as the race went on, but I never could quite get to the lead group. In hindsight I woulda/coulda/shoulda used more effort through out the race, I laid back a little too mcuch thinking I would need to save my legs. The timing system they used showed the lap splits which was really cool. Out of 3 laps, my third was fastest...one full minute faster than my second lap and really couldve been even faster. I just didn't want to blow up like I did in Fruita. Its OK, lotsa racin left this year.
This was such a solid race though. No mistakes, no acrobatics...this is the kind of race I really needed now. This kind of momentum will work great for training motivation - 10th out of 26 in CAT 2 Open and 15th overall out of 59 I think.
Next weekend is another Psycowpath series race at Platte River State Park. They've got a pretty sweet loop out there...with one sandy climb thats sorta like quicksand. Much more climbing per lap overall too...although that currently is NOT my strong suit...it should be fun!
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