King College Crit

I leave the house super early to go up to Bristol. I told the King College coach I would announce for him, so I got there fairly early. Once my announcing gig was over, I went and did the pro/1/2/3 race. The course was a parking lot crit, with a u turn in it. Not good for me. Last year, I realized, my super tall inseam and my super short upper body doesn't make a good sharp corner build. I have a very high center of gravity. I have gotten to the point where I can deal with the standard 90 degree turns just fine, but the U turns aren't so good for me. At the start line, I have 3 other teammates, and there are 2 other teams with 4 guys. So it is a pretty even race. The race starts, and immediately Zack Nave goes off the front. No one really responds. After Zack gets a 15 sec gap immediately, I decide I need to get up there. I give an acceleration, get about 5 sec on the field and people start to react. The field catches me and people are starting to counter attack. I can't respond, so Stefan tries. Stefan gets about 5 sec from the tail end of the front group which is now 5 people. Stefan couldn't quite make the gap. As soon as Stefan is reeled back in, my teammate Jason Peters goes with a hard dig. Once he gets reeled back in, I decide to try again. So I attack and have a gap. About a lap later this Asheville jerk bridges up to me. I motion him to pull through, but then I realize he has a teammate in the front group. So he sits on. That is fine. After about 4 laps of working with this guy sitting on, he attacks. I immediately am enraged! I try sticking to his wheel, but I was so tired from doing a 4 lap all out pull, I just can't follow. So I see another chase group form with Stefan in it. So I decide to wait. That group catches me and we work. With about 6 or 7 laps to go, Stefan goes to the front of the group and drills it. He begins catching the front group. Next thing I know, it's 1 lap to go. We are going into the 1st turn and the front group is right there. Had I known that the front group was right there, I would have attacked and bridged a lap sooner. But I had my head down and didn't see them. So Stefan Pulls off with half a lap to go. I thought I could sprint from 3rd wheel and take the sprint, but that was not the case. I sprint for 8th overall or something like that. Overall, my team and I could have done a better job with the tactics. Ultimately, I should have gone with Zack immediately. My delayed reaction means I was left chasing. The good news is I worked on my sprint. I learned where I need to position myself to give a hard effort. I also learned not to be afraid to try to bridge on the last lap. I would call this race a learning experience. The next race is this Saturday in Sparta. It's a really fun road race that is something like 60 or 70 miles. Last year, I had a really good ride at this race, so hopefully I can reproduce the effort.
Til Next Time,
The Crow