Kevin's Crit: Thursday

here's a photo from Tuesday...I think Dan may be smiling. Oh, wait...after a closer inspection, that mug has definitely twisted into a grimace. mcs

After Monday and Tuesday's suffer fests, I was looking forward to another relatively calm day of racing without 30 mph gusts coming off the lake. The race actually started off the slowest of any of the days this week, which I was fine with, my legs felt trashed during my warm up and I wasn't real confident that I was going to be able to stay with the pack the entire time which was my goal for the week: just hang on, get some experience and get as many starts as possible.

After about 3 laps the inevitable attacks started and the pace began to get whipped up, pushing the race average to around 24.5 MPH. None of the attacks were able to stay away though since the group was really focused and working well together to bring everyone back to set up for a sprint at the end. Throughout the race I was really concentrating on positioning and trying to stay in the top 15-20 spots in the middle of the pack, using the slipstream as much as possible.

With about 6 laps to go I realized that my legs felt the best of any day this week and I started thinking it might be possible to set myself up for a top 10 finish. On the following laps I kept testing my legs to make sure I would have enough left for a sprint and just tried to maintain my position in the pack. As soon as we started the bell lap the pace picked up and the pack started to get strung out heading into the second to last corner; coming out of the corner I moved to the inside because I wanted to be on the inside coming off the last turn. I was able to hold my line and position through the final turn and gave everything my legs had to snag 7th. Thanks to the loudest one person Spidermonkey cheering section (Vanessa) who I heard on every lap!!

Looking forward to some more racing tomorrow (Saturday)

~Dan Pollard


Here's a photo of Vanessa taking a fast corner in the race on Tuesday (that's the one she finished 2nd!) The rider in black, just behind Vanessa, was the winner.