...your first tanline of the year looks like this.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Spring Super Crit Cat 3/4
I'll start off by saying what a great job Burnham Racing did to put on this event. It was a very fun course to race on and Burnham did an incredible job from the wealth of information before the race to the quick registration process, to the races being on time.
So being an audio engineer i do have to say one thing. Next year they need to have a speaker aimed at the track. During the race you could not hear anything. Not a single word. The audio system at Blackhawk is for the spectators as you wouldn't hear it anyway in a car or motorcycle but for our races even having just one speaker at the start/finish line aimed at the riders, would have helped out alot. See below.
Leading up to this race i had the best week of training for the year. (read most hours) i took it very easy on saturday so that the legs would be ok for sunday. As it turned out they felt good and i was feeling great on sunday.
Being my first race with Project 5 it was awesome to be racing with the guys and the support i've recieved so far has been amazing. Our plan was to send guys with the early breaks while i try to save myself for the second half of the race. That part worked out great. We had somebody in most of the early attempts and when the real move went Kevin got himself in the break.
I remember at one point when we were coming out of the turn before the s curve and up ahead you could see the 7 guys just exiting the s curve i realized that was the move. I thought about trying to bridge but decided not to since we had someone in the break.
Later in the race when the break was gone there was a an attack that i piggybacked on to. My only purpose was to ride a chase group up to the break if it was possible and if not that was it. I wasn't going to chase my own teammate so i just sat in. Thinking back i should have done at least one pull but i didn't and eventually it fell apart.
Once we were caught the field setteled in for a sprint. I just hung back and didn't really feel like sprinting for 5 spots back of the podium. what i didn't intend to do was totally miss the fact that we were on our final lap. As we went thru the start finish i heard the bell, and saw 1 to go but i looked at my computer and we were only at 48 minutes. I totally convinced myself that this was a prime since you couldn't here anything that was being said. The pace picked up but even going into the last turn it didn't really feel like a final sprint yet. By the time i fully realized it was the last lap it was too late. I blew the opportunity for our team to at least practice a lead out. oh well lesson learned.
The funny thing is i remember hearing somebody remark before our race that in their race they didn't know it was the last lap and I thought what a rookie mistake. how could anyone do that. Well i guess the joke's on me.
So i "officially" finished 28th but there's a big list on riders below me with no placing and i know a few of those finished ahead of me so i'm pretty sure i was out of the top 30.
One observation: The rider who i'll call Muzzin kept yelling goofy things during the race. One time he charged past me in the field yelling, "the break is effin getting away!" in his best Muzzin imitation. Then later he declared the fact that his team had just made their 4th big pull of the race. Well you have 3 times as many riders in the race as the rest of us so you should be doing big pulls was my thought. I just thought it was funny.
Again this race was a ton of fun and a great job was done by Burnham. Way to go guys. Your hard work was very much appreciated by us.
So being an audio engineer i do have to say one thing. Next year they need to have a speaker aimed at the track. During the race you could not hear anything. Not a single word. The audio system at Blackhawk is for the spectators as you wouldn't hear it anyway in a car or motorcycle but for our races even having just one speaker at the start/finish line aimed at the riders, would have helped out alot. See below.
Leading up to this race i had the best week of training for the year. (read most hours) i took it very easy on saturday so that the legs would be ok for sunday. As it turned out they felt good and i was feeling great on sunday.
Being my first race with Project 5 it was awesome to be racing with the guys and the support i've recieved so far has been amazing. Our plan was to send guys with the early breaks while i try to save myself for the second half of the race. That part worked out great. We had somebody in most of the early attempts and when the real move went Kevin got himself in the break.
I remember at one point when we were coming out of the turn before the s curve and up ahead you could see the 7 guys just exiting the s curve i realized that was the move. I thought about trying to bridge but decided not to since we had someone in the break.
Later in the race when the break was gone there was a an attack that i piggybacked on to. My only purpose was to ride a chase group up to the break if it was possible and if not that was it. I wasn't going to chase my own teammate so i just sat in. Thinking back i should have done at least one pull but i didn't and eventually it fell apart.
Once we were caught the field setteled in for a sprint. I just hung back and didn't really feel like sprinting for 5 spots back of the podium. what i didn't intend to do was totally miss the fact that we were on our final lap. As we went thru the start finish i heard the bell, and saw 1 to go but i looked at my computer and we were only at 48 minutes. I totally convinced myself that this was a prime since you couldn't here anything that was being said. The pace picked up but even going into the last turn it didn't really feel like a final sprint yet. By the time i fully realized it was the last lap it was too late. I blew the opportunity for our team to at least practice a lead out. oh well lesson learned.
The funny thing is i remember hearing somebody remark before our race that in their race they didn't know it was the last lap and I thought what a rookie mistake. how could anyone do that. Well i guess the joke's on me.
So i "officially" finished 28th but there's a big list on riders below me with no placing and i know a few of those finished ahead of me so i'm pretty sure i was out of the top 30.
One observation: The rider who i'll call Muzzin kept yelling goofy things during the race. One time he charged past me in the field yelling, "the break is effin getting away!" in his best Muzzin imitation. Then later he declared the fact that his team had just made their 4th big pull of the race. Well you have 3 times as many riders in the race as the rest of us so you should be doing big pulls was my thought. I just thought it was funny.
Again this race was a ton of fun and a great job was done by Burnham. Way to go guys. Your hard work was very much appreciated by us.
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