The rescheduled Rocktoberfest race was this morning, and we were happily blessed with good weather this time. I arrived around 6:15 a.m. to help set up, and deal with all of the usual "I forgot my racing license" issues that race officials have to handle. The day went sort of like this: load up the car in the dark; drive out to the lakefront; help with race setup and officiating; race in the masters race; officiate/judge the cat. 5 race; help with the crash victim until the ambulance arrived; officiate/judge the Cat. 4 race; rush over to the car, pull out the bike, slap on shoes and helmet and get to start line of Cat. 1,2,3 race; race again; help with tear-down; drive home; post results to the e-mail lists; wonder why my legs were aching.
Here's how the races went:
The Masters race was pretty much between our team and another local team, NBO. From the start I took off at a moderate pace, but nobody came past for mile or so. Bad sign. Things got pretty animated with Charlie Davis of our team and Howard Luna of NBO trading attacks for a while. A 3-man break got away that included Charlie, but it wasn't going away very fast and I didn't really like the odds for Charlie in that one since the other two riders would be riding against Charlie. So that one got chased down after a few miles. Another 3-man break went shortly afterward that included our rider Mike and that looked pretty good to me, but the other two riders weren't working and so that one got caught too. It came down to a sprint. The pace ramped up a lot in the last kilo and the sprint started at about 300m. I got Mike's wheel and he pulled us clear with about 100m to go. I thought Mike had the win easy and I actually eased up for a second to make sure I didn't come past him. Right about then, I heard Howard coming up on the right really fast. He really surprised me and, as it turned out, Mike was starting to die. I was already in the 12 and couldn't accelerate in time, so Howard got the win with me second and mike third and our teammate Rick in 4th., so not too bad.
The Cat. 1,2,3 race was fast and hard. The first two laps of the 3-mi. circuit were at around 30 mph with one attack after another. I was seriously on the rivet. A break of 5 or 6 got away and the NBO guys for some reason started blocking. All of the Herring guys except one were in the break, and the two NBO sprinters were back with us, so it didn't really make sense. Anyway, I had to do a TON of work to keep them within range. We had Charlie in the break, but since he had already raced once that morning I wasn't expecting him to hang in for very long. My teammate Branden was back with us and I really wanted to get him back into contention, so I was working my arse off at the front a lot and helping to bridge him across a few gaps. I knew the Herring guy would try to bridge, and I was right, but one of us was on his wheel each time. Meanwhile, the break was starting to disintegrate under the strain. Charlie came off and ended up DNFing. A couple more came back to the pack. Then the Herring guy, Kenny, launched another attack that got us up into the 30s for a while. That got us close enough to the break to smell blood and we caught right after that. However, one of the Herring guys, Troy the Aussie, launched before we caught and managed to stay out in front to the finish a couple of laps later. Coming into the last kilo, I rolled up to Branden and told him to stay on Frank Moak's wheel "no matter what" because I knew Frank would get 1st or 2nd in the sprint. Things ramped up fast and with about 200 meters to go, Frank slipped through a little hole on the right up against the curb and the door closed on Branden, so he had to back off a little and go around the long way on the left. Sure enough, Frank won the pack sprint, but Branden did a great sprint and go 3rd in the pack (4th overall), so that was a real good result for him since he just upgraded to Cat. 3 recently. I kind of backed off in the sprint and came in 7th.
Overall, I had a blast. I just wish one of us could have won that Master's race!
I'll try and get the results up on the NOBC website some time tomorrow, and should have some pictures up there in a few days.
The Cat. 5 race had a pretty big field and the race ended up in a big field sprint. About 400 meters from the line one rider went down hard. One of the other riders then rolled over his head or something. So we had to call the ambulance out for that one. He ended up with a mild concussion, broken collarbone, very deep scrape (you could see the tendons) on his hand, and road-rash on his forehead, around his eye, on his chin, both knees, the backs of both hands, elbows, etc., etc. When I got to him he was just a little confused - not as bad as I've seen before with head injuries. His helmet was broken in a few places. We happened to have a neurosurgeon at the race, so he came over and checked him out. He's back at home now after a few hours at the ER and in the CAT scanner, and will see the ortopedist tomorrow. He'll be off the bike for a few months, most likely. We saved the helmet that we had for the random drawings for him instead. As a rider I once raced with used to say:
"Live by the sprint; die by the sprint!"
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