Survival in Natchez (edited)

There was a good field for the combined Cat. 1/2 and Cat. 3 road race championships this year, and as I lined up for the 9 am start I wondered how long I'd be able to survive. That's one thing you never really know about road racing. Sometimes a combination of defensive riding, a large field, and gentle winds will keep you in the race for a long time even if you're obviously out-gunned. Other times things will get aggressive and fast right away and despite your best survival tricks you'll get spit out the back like a bite of rotten peach. Of course, today there was also the heat to consider, but at least the 9am start would make it less oppressive than the prior day's 2 pm master's event. There were a lot of riders in the Cat. 1,2,3 field who had ridden the master's race the prior day, including Realdo and Russ who had finished first and second in the 35+ and Frank and me who had finished first and second in the 45+. My plan for this race was pretty simple: conserve as much as possible, stay near the front on the hard climbs, and try to survive to the finish. I was glad to find that my legs felt pretty good following Saturday's race, so at least I knew I'd be able to handle the climbing.

The race was active and fast during the early laps on the short 5 mile loop and I was starting to wonder if I'd survive this one without getting dropped. My teammate Keith Duet was looking fairly comfortable, though, and always seemed to be in a good position. I guess it was around the fifth lap or so when, as we were going up the first climb near the feed zone, that I saw Frank Moak suddenly drop back. I didn't know if he'd had a flat or what had happened, but at any rate all my attention was focused on getting up the hill at the time. A little while later I saw him back in the pack and asked what had happened. He said he'd dropped his chain on the climb and thought he might have put a kink in it because it was occasionally skipping. I dropped back behind him and when he stopped pedaling I could see a really nasty kink in it. It was the kind of kink that was practically guaranteed to result in a broken chain. I told him to look down and when he did he knew his race was over. He dropped back and almost made it all the way back to the start, but it finally broke when he was climbing the steep little uphill onto the finish stretch. Anyway, after Frank dropped back (I swear the pack eased up and waited for him for a while) the race seemed to back off a notch and we had a lot of laps that were fairly smooth. That provided a lot of much-needed recovery for me, even though I knew it wouldn't last.

I guess we had about four laps to go when things started getting really aggressive again. For the rest of the race there were repeated attacks, chases, and counter-attacks, especially on and immediately after, the hilly section. When we went up the three hills after the feed zone with, I think, 4 to go, I put in a pretty hard effort and found myself with a fairly big gap but not nearly enough gas to try to hold it. I glanced back and saw a group coming up to me pretty fast, so I eased up for a moment to try and recover. As I heard the wheels approaching from behind I felt Realdo's hand on my back as he came past, encouraging me to latch on. We had a pretty nice group with a gap on the rest of the field and it was going well, although I wasn't much use myself. Even so, we were caught after a mile or two and the attacks continued.

Finally a break got off the front that included Realdo, Russ and Bain. This all happened within the last couple of laps, I guess, and although the rest of the pack was certainly not willing to give up, the break had riders from two of the more active teams in it. Meanwhile, I was figuring that the break wouldn't be caught and we'd end up with a big pack sprint for the leftovers. As we got close to the finish I saw Tim Regan and Matt Davis go shooting out of the pack. That's around where my memory gets fuzzy. I tried to go with them, but somehow, just before the 1 km mark, I ended up in-between and alone. Now you understand that there is no way in hell I can hold off the pack, which from my vantage point looked like a pack of hungry wolves waiting for an injured calf to collapse. I eased up hoping to be able to get back where I belonged before the sprint started, and just as I came around the final steep turn at about 400 meters, Kenny Bellau came past on the inside. He glanced over at me and eased up so I could catch his wheel and then basically lead me out for the sprint. The aforementioned wolves, however, were right behind us just waiting for the right moment to pounce. As we approached the 200 meter mark Kenny started to fade and for unknown reasons I hesitated for a moment. The wolves did not, and I could hear the "whoosh, whoosh" of sprinting tires all around me. I think I ended up around 3rd or 4th in the pack sprint, and was pretty happy with that result, especially since my primary goal of survival had been achieved. A few moments earlier, Realdo had won the sprint for first, with Russ taking second. That's amazing since it is the same order in which they had finished in Saturday's Master's race. But the real "tough guy" prize has to go to Diego Ortiz who, on Saturday rode the Junior race, placing 2nd, and then immediately lined up for the Cat. 5 race where he finished 3rd, and then got Shane to give him his upgrade to Cat. 4 so he could race the Sunday afternoon Cat. 4 race where he finished 3rd. Although I couldn't stay around long enough to see the finish of the Cat. 4s, I was there at the end of the first lap when teammate Brooks Abel rolled in with a broken chain. Man, those 10-speed chains really don't like being abused when people shift under load on the climbs!

I really enjoyed the races this weekend. The course there in the Natchez State Park is challenging enough to make for interesting racing, but not so intimitating to frighten off the riders who don't happen to be in top shape at that particular time. The race organization seemed even better than last year, and unlike the Texas Cat. 3 championships the same weekend, nobody got directed off course!!