I haven’t raced Pacific Raceways in about a year and a half. The drive, the cost, the wedding race restriction… all factors led to me staying put in the Seattle area staring at my bike on Tuesday nights. Well, last night I hitched a ride in the Martin Mobile and jumped into the 1/2/3 race with Brad, Dustin and Aaron.
I anchored the back of the pack and chatted it up with a few guys I haven’t seen in a while, talked about the new IJM.org team and basically watched what was happening from afar. That got boring though so I moved up to Pat G and sat on his wheel for a while. Chased Hone down after the first prime but I don’t hink he was giving 100%, seemed tired from the stage race last weekend. When we got caught he and I floated back a bit and I asked him how Ongers was doing. Sounds like he needs some recovery time but he’ll be back up in the mix soon. What a scary thing to go down. Back injuries scare the hell out of me.
By the second prime I was finally feeling the Wheaties and pounced on the group leading through the turn. I couldn’t come around the Lenovo guy at 100m though and missed the point by a few wheels. We had a bit of a cluster going into the bell lap at the exact same time the 4/5’s were finishing but no one ate pavement luckily. We stalled on the drag strip and I could see Dustin and Brad, then Aaron and they looked in great position so I jumped up to string it out a bit into the turn. Aaron took a dig and we both pulled off before the straight and I think Dustin got 8th with Brad close behind, not sure since I was sitting up in the back with Aaron.
Lesson from the night was I started it too early. Should have waited until the turn but then who knows someone would have jumped us and we wouldn’t have put anybody up there. It’s just a fun night. It’s nice to be back
Bike – Flyte SRS2 (the BMC is broken… Boooo!) 50-34 x 11/23 Easton EC90 wheels
Ride Food – bottle of water
Speed- Dunno… my magnet came off on the warm up. Any one get the max and average?
Seward Park this Thursday and Volunteer Crit/ Brad Lewis Crit this weekend. Good Times!
27.5 mph. Nice work B – strongest you have been since I have known you as a racer. See you at Seward if it is dry. I am hitting up the 7pm.