road racing with friends

perry road race, march 16. #3 in th series was 7 laps instead of the 5 from the 1st race of the series. i actually had 2 other teammates there. 10 guys toed the start line and 3 of us were wearing the 360racing kits. i have or had no idea what to do with more than one teammate anyway..........so what the hell, let's have some fun. jason, ted and myself didn't even bother to discuss tactics. i just assumed that was due to all of us knowing we were chasing a soon to be cat 2 racer in shadd schreiner from cowtown cycling. all he needed to do was fet one more race win and he should have enough points to be a 3 and then its on his way. trust me this kid is super talented. lots of mtb racing in his past and 2 seasons of cx under his belt........he is FRIGGIN fast. the previous 2 weeks he has won the cat 4 race rather handily. actually he has been rather kind to us and stayed with the group. i truly believe he doesn't know his own strenth and he could of left us at any time over the last couple of races. with the one good climb on the circuit it would be easy for him to do. his tempo up that hil is everyone elses 'redline'. relative to us cat 4 guys.
anyway. end of lap one rolling down the hil onto the dam and into a head wind, jason just kind of road on up the road away from the other nine of us. ted and i were on the front with the group kind of dissorganized behind us. by the end of the mile lenth section before we turned downwind jason had a 20 second gap on us. shadd tried to light it up a little on the downwind section to bridge and i chased. that lasted for a few seconds and he shut it down, not wanting to do all the work or not wanting to bring me along for a free ride. i decided there that i would be chasing anthing and everything as long as jason was off. i think the rest of the group either didnt want to help shadd or didnt think jason could last the final 6 laps. hell i knew he couldn't but i still think they were a bunch of pussys just sitting back and waiting for shadd to do the bulk of the work. a full lap later and jason was still 25 seconds up the road when the group turned west down wind. marking shadd, i could see he was getting antsy. and did i call it, i was out of my saddle sprinting almost before shadd was. so for the next mile or so i don't think my computer went below 38mph thanks to shadd and a stiff wind at our back. i really thought it was going to be shadd bridging me and him up to jason. but the 6 or 7 behind us barely creeped back on when shadd backed it off a hair.(maybe , naw i couldn't help) but it would have been cool me and shadd rollin up to jason. cuz basically 3-4 of those guys were dead weight. didn't do a friggin thing all day. so the group ended up reelin' in jason about halfway up the 3/4mile climb on the circuit that has the start/finish line at the top. and of course over the top. everybody sits up as we roll downhill towards the damn. shadd proceeds to roll off the front in slow motion with the 'dead weight' staring at eachother like idiots. i wanted to let shadd get a little furthur up the road and join him but about the time i am grabbin a drink a teammate rolls by me to join shadd. and all the idiots just let my teammate go to him. alright.............guess i am going to be chasing down everything today, cuz the winning break is shadd and somebody who has a teammate in with the pack. an that would be the 360 guys. thanks alot, deadweight! that truly was the race. an Oz racer and a capp's rebound racer put in a bunch of digs over the next 4 laps. i probably cover 7 or 8 of them and once ted got his racing legs under him he covered a bunch as well. we even chased or bridged up late with 2 laps to go when the Oz guy took a hard dig downwind that caught all the lazy bastards and me and ted by suprise. not only did SKC(jan), the trekof KC(william) and a couple of others not want to do any work, they couldn't even holler with some guy sprinting from the back of the group. friggin assholes. hell, the one time william comes to the front, its with less than a mile to go in the race.........he proceeds to overcook the final turn, which turns uphill mind you. so he overcooks the right hander and takes ted and i into the grass with him on the oppisite side of the road. SO much for sprinting for third. fucking asshole!!

oh well, jason got second. so i guess ted and i did our job. it was fun working fo a teammate. and ted and i received another lesson in why we really want to cat up and race as a cat 3.

till next time.