The Seward park race was my first time there and the course is pretty small. I think it is .6 of a mile with a nice little hill right before the finish. Cycle U had a good showing with 4-5 guys. I hung out in the pack for the first couple laps as it is a pretty fast course with not alot of flat ground and I wanted to get a feel for the pavement and corners. You’re either going down or going up. On one of the laps I tested my legs up the hill and moved right to the front of the pack and led everyone over the line which I quickly slowed up and allowed someone else to set the pace. Last lap and I am right up in the front group, probably 10th wheel or so and I am on the inside next to the curb with no where to go. As everyone starts sprinting up the hill I have to manuever around 4 guys to get away from the curb. I was able to get up behind 3rd place and out sprint him up the hill to the line for 2nd. I finished just behind 1st place and knew if I had a better position I could have challenged him for the big W. Soon I thought I will get a win.
This brings us up to date to Tuesday night at Pacific Raceways. Leading up to last night we were getting alot of guys saying they would be there. We had 8 guys last night I believe and Rolly announced to the team that they all would be leading me out to the line to try and get the win. This obviously is a great feeling to have knowing that the team is willing to kill themselves so I can get a win. This brings a quote to mind from a movie I am sure everyone is familiar with. "With great power comes great responsibility". So not only was it cool they were going to do this but it put some pressure on me to not choke. Coach Craig was there and was going to be racing with us as well but thankfully he wasn't racing against us as he was just moving through the field providing advice to everyone about lines and what to do. On to the racing. We took off with a field size of about 30 and I stayed as much in the pack as I could. The more you are out of the wind the less energy you spend. It was a great sight to see all the Cycle U boys up there near the front controlling things and watching the other teams, to make sure a break away didn't happen. With 3 laps to go I began to get nervous, knowing that I had to pony up and come with the goods in a few laps for the final sprint. With 2 laps to go the 5 guys that the team chose to go to the front were there doing their job, hammering the field as best they could. The funny thing was the team was off by a lap as we came back around to get the last lap. The guys that hammered it, Travis, Chris, and John I believe were toast now. It would have been a perfect lead out but we still had a lap to go so we all just sat up and had a quick laugh as the field came by. Remember this is our first try at leading someone out at the end of a race. We stayed close to the front and then a break of 2 went and out of nowhere Shawn flew by us and bridged the gap to the 2 guys. That was pretty cool to see. Then another attack came and this time it was Coach Craig that took off to bridge. About this time Rolly moved to the front of the group and started issuing the pain. I stuck to his wheel the whole lap. No matter where he went I barged my way to make sure I was behind him and kept telling him, "I'm still here". Just as we came around the last turn we caught Coach Craig and the other rider. Rolly was just hammering it and I kept rubbing my front wheel on his back wheel on accident, which could have been a nightmare if I took us both out but I was staying as close to him as I could. Nobody got by us until we got to the start of the straight away when Rolly was starting to run out of gas. A guy moved to the left of me and started his sprint. I yelled to Rolly on the left and I was going, which allowed Rolly to sit up and move to the right, his job of getting me to the lead sprint complete. Now it was up to me to come through for the team with the win. I moved over and got behind the rider's wheel and thought to myself this is going to be painful as we still had the whole front straight to go with the finish line at the end. I had shifted all the way up to my biggest gear and was out of the saddle sprinting. I moved out of his draft to the left and just as I did my big gear shifted in. Apparently I wasn't in the biggest gear yet as my shifter was delayed in shifting all the way up. This gave me the extra kick I needed and I was able to out sprint the guy to finish! As I crossed the line I sat up and clapped my hands together a few times very happy and then fell back down to the bars to try and catch my breath. It was a long sprint but it was an awesome feeling to get my first win and really get the first team win as everyone on the team did something to get me there. I was really happy to pay them all back with getting us the WIN plus we did all this in front of Coach Craig... Big thanks to everyone on the team and next week we will choose someone else within the team to work for.
Cycle U will be racing this weekend in the Snohomish area so hopefully we can use our practice to getting us a win.
Until then More Power Scotty!
1 comment:
Awesome job Brad! Congrats to you and the whole Cycle U crew. Can't wait to be out there again next year...
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