After the gloom and muck of Saturday (Starbucks GP at Marymoor), Sunday was warmer, dryer, and brighter!
Sprinkler park is usually a faster style course with long stretches of mashing with tight, technical segments and some challenging rolling sections. After the mediocre finish yesterday I was ready to make amends. I was in third place in this series and a good finish could boost my standings. I made sure to preride the course a bit, and check out how some of the tough sections were riding (Watching the 1/2s duke it out first, you can really figure out where the make-it/break-it sections are).
At the start I easily had my best launch this season and was 4th onto the dirt and through the sweeping right/left corner. As we plunged toward the first hairpin I jumped past the rest of the group and was leading the race. I carried the field through a few more corners before falling to 2nd place after the barriers. I stayed tight to the leader's wheel and soon enough the course opened up and I squeezed by again heading into the first technical section. I rode up the small hill and through the sand pit and carried my small lead through the rolling section. As we hit the run-up I was back into 2nd place but stuck there until we were on the back-stretch and heading into the start-finish line.
I was back in front at the line and through lap 2 led for most of the lap before being over-taken on the hill as I tried to ride it again while the rest ran up. For the next few laps the group was myself, a junior from Rad racing, and the two Soft-like-Kitten riders. We duked it out, swapping attacks and temporary leads, while gaining ground on the rest of the field. With about 2 laps to go the Rad racing kid and I had a small gap formed and tried to increase our lead on the Kittens. I led for most of the lap but in a technical section at the start of the final lap the Rad rider shot by. I was now chasing hard to stay on his wheel, although his gap was looking pretty strong...
As we hit the rollers I was still a few seconds back, however suddenly the Rad rider stopped just ahead of me. He had dropped his chain as he had tried shifting while dropping into the last of the rollers. I powered past before he could get it back in action and now I was leading with a gap. Rad was back on his bike quickly and was chasing hard to stick to me as the Kittens got closer. We carried on through the remainder of the course in this fashion, however as we hit the back stretches I kicked up the pace - there was only a few moments left to seal the race! As we carried through the chicane toward the finish line I chanced a glimpse back - I had a gap still between myself and Rad. Figuring he would drop everything left to try to pip me I also jumped from the corner and carried my gap all the way to the line for my first SCX win of the season! It turns out that in the finale of the race the Kittens were finally caught by another rider and both were left off the podium.
Once the dust had settled I am now 2nd in this series with only 1 point separating me from the leader! This series has 3 more races left to decide the victor, starting with Enumclaw and the huge run-up next weekend. If I can hold onto my form for the remaining month I could theoretically take both series this year! That would definitely be a great way to end the season before moving to the Cat 1/2 races.
Congrats also to our other racers!
Pam Massey - 6th Place - Women's 4s 35+
Dave Matthews - 27th - Men's Singlespeed
No comments:
Post a Comment