Nebraska State Criterium Championship: Race Report

I'm a little behind on my race reports as I sit and type this one on the eve of my next race tomorrow morning.

Last Sunday was the 2nd day of the Norfolk Cycling Weekend and doubled as the Nebraska Sate Criterium Champiuonship. This was one of my key races for the season as I see myself as a crit specialist and I won the race last year.

The course was the same as last year and I really liked the way it flowed. Of course last year it was raining and hailing so I wanted to see how it was when it was dry and sunny. I was also helping to redeam myself from the previous days bad performance.

When we got to the race course and found a place to park I started to get suited up after what I thought was plenty of time to get ready. As I was getting changed and my bike ready I started to notice a few riders that I knew were Cat 5 guys showing up and it looked like they had just finised racing so I started to get freaked out thinking that I had looked at the wrong time. So I quickly finished getting ready and started to roll towards registration when I heard a couple of guys tell me to "get up there, they're lining up". When I got to the start line the officials where calling out my name and looked at me and told me to "sign my realease form and get directly back". I was freaking out that I didn't have any warm up but it was time to go. I didn't even have time to tell my family that we were getting started so they missed the race.

When we got going it took me a few laps to get warmed up and I was hanging towards the back. I eventually started to feel surprisingly well after feeling so horrible on the previous day. I started to work my way towards the front and made it to the middle of the back and at about 13 laps to go I was starting to make my move to get into the front 7 or 8 riders to be in position for the finish.

When I went through with 12 laps to go I hit turn 1 the fastest turn at full speed when I felt a my bike move akward and my pedal struck the ground and then my rear wheel stopped turning and I went sliding across the road. I have no idea how I kept the bike upright and I was getting elbowed by other riders and then I got hit by a rider behind and he went down. I looked back and saw the tublar tire wrapped around my brake. The freakin tire popped off the Easton wheels that are for the team to use. I was pissed and started to get back to the start line. I had someone offer me a wheel and the officials were going to let me do it so that I could get back into the race but by the time I got my rear tire out of my brake I realized that one of the pads was missing and I was thinking about going back in but figured it would not be a smart move and the officials would not have let me anyways so my race was finished.

No hope for a repeat and a shitty way to end an already disappioting weakend. The wheel was trashed and I am know highly motivated for next years Crit Championship to redeam myself.

Harp