Originally, I wasn't sure if anyone would come join me for my 2nd crit of the season, but to my welcomed surprise, Shannon, Todd and Mitchell ended up coming out for tonight's race festivities. It was good to know that representing the team would not fall on my shoulders alone. HA HA.
We all got to line up toward the front and within the 2nd and 3rd row behind Team Velosport. This worked to our advantage for the most part given that there was an immediate breakaway from the very beginning. The breakaway was fast and caused the chase group to also be faster than normal for a first lap already causing people to pop-off early on. However, as the front of the chase group was led mostly by Team Velosport, they did not appear ready or willing to close the gap on the breakaway too early. LTJ made his way up to the front early on as a result and was trying to push the group to help give chase, but with no luck. Seeing that no one was willing to help him, I jumped up to the front as well to give him a hand on the bottom of the track, and Shannon also ended up making his way up front to help as well. However, as we were on our own trying to rotate and push the pace up, everyone else stayed behind us holding us out for as long as they could. I guess trying to close on the breakaway was just not a priority.
The pace remained high for the next 3-4 laps, and it was tough to hang on. While Todd was up front on the 4th or 5th lap on the back side, I just ran out of energy and could not keep the pace of the group. Shannon had come around me to try and have me latch on and close the gap that was forming in front of me, but I just didn't have it. Eventually, the whole track cutting thing was just too appealing...so I did...again.
Shannon and Todd stayed in the pack, which was awesome considering it was their first outing back. What was more impressive was how fast they were still moving as they continued on through the whole race. I think they hit their best averages for the race by doing so. It was so fast that I failed in TWO attempts to latch back on. I had even taken a break prior to the 2nd attempt by talking to Lisa and Pam in the sidelines. HA HA.
When I failed on my 2nd attempt, Mitchell was coming up behind me and he, too, had problems latching on to the pack taking multiple attempts also to do so. I took the last attempt to latch on with him, and fortunately, it was the last lap and all we had to do was finish the back end of the lap. From there, we could see Todd and Shannon still in the mix. Again...awesome and way to represent.
On the sprint to the final, Todd had gotten spent from all his efforts up front where he didn't have enough to challenge. However, Shannon gave the sprint a go passing one of our infamous competitors (name withheld) along with some other people and taking #8 for the night. Todd probably was just outside of the top 10...also awesome for the first outing back. Now the breakaway group was never caught, so that just goes to show how fast they're going now in this CAT. Not sure why these guys don't go up the ranks.
Congrats to team BRCM for showing that we can be a factor out there, albeit not all of us. There were some shaky moments out there with some mouthing off, some elbow rubbing (even for me) and what even appeared to some as attempts to take our guys out, but I know it will only get better as the season progresses and we gain even more respect.
Thanks to Lisa and Pam for coming out and cheering us on. Pam also brought some sandwiches for some after race nourishment. Thanks!
See ya next week!
P.S. Shannon's Strava was a lot more flattering than mine, so I used his in case you were wondering.
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