Up in Brookhaven

It's Mississippi Gran Prix weekend. I've been up here in Brookhaven since Friday evening when I got to watch, and help officiate, the Cat. 1/2/3 criterium. Compared to some of the prior years, Friday's crit was relatively tame. The term "relative," however, means different things to different people. There was a whole group of riders who got dropped pretty early in the race and ended up being lapped. Results were kind of difficult because the race finishes up in the dark, which the finish camera does not seem to like.


So this morning we headed over to the road race course, arriving early enough to get a nice parking spot. The weather was a little bit chilly, but the sky was clear and I knew it would warm up quickly. I was entered in the Master 40+ race, which entailed two laps of the 25 mile course. I really had no idea what to expect. Thankfully the race started out at a fairly civilized pace, but it didn't last long. There were attacks being launched continuously and as a result I spent a whole lot of time up near the front, mostly chasing them down but occasionally going with the breaks. Finally, maybe a third of the way into the first lap, I got into a 6-rider break that looked really promising. Most of the teams were represented and everyone was pulling. I really thought we were gone for good because we were rolling pretty fast. Unfortunately we had neglected to include Donald Davis. By all accounts, after we'd been out there for maybe ten miles, he went to the front or a number of miles and pulled what was left of the field up to us. They caught us right after the 1st lap hot spot sprint. I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed. I had really invested a lot of energy in that first lap, so at that point I dropped back to the middle of the pack to seek a bit of recovery. Next thing I knew a 3-man break was off the front. Somebody up at the front of our group must not have wanted anything else to get away. We caught them fairly quickly, and as we came up from behind they sat up. Well, except for Donald. He just kept going. The guy is an animal. Anyway, he dangled out there for a while, but then he just started pulling away until he was out of sight. Things didn't really slow down all that much back in the pack, although to me it definitely felt a bit easier than the first lap. Then, with about 5 km to go Frank and another rider pulled away on a climb and separated from the field. Another rider tried to bridge up to them (not sure if he actually made it). Suddenly I saw Jaro moving up toward the front. I hadn't seen him for practically the entire race, as he'd been sitting on the back the whole time. I think we were sprinting for 4th place at the end, and I guess I got maybe 8th. The results have been kind of a problem today. There was some sort of camera malfunction for a couple of the road race finishes.


So we arrived at the TT course only half an hour before the first riders were scheduled start, but the Chief Ref didn't arrive with the RR results until just before 5 m. Amazingly, the first rider started only about 15 minutes later than scheduled. I scratched out my usual substandard time trial, turning in something around 6:40 for the 3 mi. affair, which looks rather lame next to the 6:08 that Donald did or the 5:40something that a couple of the Herring guys reportedly did. Unfortunately, I still haven't seen the results (it's 11 pm).