Beautiful weather with temperatures around 80F and nothing but sun from the sky was on tap yesterday in Cedar Rapids for the 2009 Iowa State Criterium Championships presented by HBA Racing. We arrived at the races at around 10:30am to hang out with some people as well as give me a chance to check out the course prior to my 2pm start time. The course was about as simple as it can get, aside from drag racing, since it was a 1km rectangle with four right hand turns. Turn one seemed to be the only "bad" turn, and it wasn't that bad really, due to a slight buckle in the asphalt. Other than that, all of the roads that were being used were four-lane roads so the corners were plenty wide for carrying speed. Turns 1&3 have a very slight downward slope since the course is coming off of a bridge on each of those and so turns 2&4 both have a slight upward slope, nothing too crazy.

The Cat. 4 race had 40 entrants toe the line at 2pm including some great riders from all over the state as well as a few new upgrades from the Cat. 5 field. My primary goal for the race was to stay out ot trouble and spend as much time towards the front as possible for the 25 lap race. After we received the briefing from the referee, he sent us off and it did not take very long for the pace to get up. The first lap went by super fast and seemed to go pretty smooth for the whole group as I started to relax into my race mind and focus on the plan. With the wide corners on the course and corner speeds staying fairly high, the huge accelerations at most crits did not seem as bad. It was probably also due to the fact that a lot of the guys were pedaling through the corners as well so the pace just stayed fairly constant. I am not sure which lap it was, but it was within the first five or six I think, I was mid-pack as we were going through turn one and I had Mike Johnson (Bike Tech) on my left side and another rider on my right as something happened on the left and I saw a couple of bikes get a little crazy and then saw Mike start going down. I thought for sure that I was going to join him since we were so close but, somehow I made it past by. The group on front heard the commotion and as always happens in a crit with a crash, the front row upped the pace in an attempt to spread out the group. That did not last very long and we were right back to our regular pace of I believe around 24-25mph although I'm just making an estimate there.

I found myself trying to get to the outside, left side of the road, so that I could carry as much speed through the turns as possible but, it seemed that there were a few others that had the same idea so it was a constant battle to rotate back out. The group was not going through the turns singlefile like a lot of the other classes were but instead there were times when we were four and five abreast railing through the turns. With two laps to go I was trying to make an attempt to move up the left side and I saw my teammate Terry Huerter on the right side and looking strong. Best case scenario would be that both of us could move close to the front on the last lap and make it run for it at turn four. Well, on lap 24 I saw that we were both still moving along okay and just staying out of trouble which meant that the 25th and final lap it was going to be all out. With the one rider still off the front and I brlieve 30 or so riders left in the main group, the bunch sprint should be good. Turn one of the final lap went well and I was able to pop out the left side and find a wheel going through turn two. Another rider came by on the left side along the back straightaway and things were looking really good with Terry still on the right side as we turned into turn three at least five riders wide. That's when it all went really crazy. There was an explosion of a tire that sounded like a 12-gauge shotgun going off downtown, I saw two bikes sliding across the ground from the right side which forced much of the group to swerve left. I figure that I lost between 8-10 positions right there and jumped out of the saddle to try to catch a wheel through turn four. I was able to make up around six spots in the final 150 meters which put me in 18th position overall.

Unfortunately, the tire explosion that I had heard also involved my teammate Terry. Aside from a touch of road rash on his arm he looked to be okay, although the grimace that was on his face when he poured peroxide on it told the rest of us how it felt. Ouch. Hopefully we can make up for that next weekend in Clear Lake at the Crit on Saturday and the Road Race on Sunday. I also hunted down Mike Johnson and aside from a bit of raw skin on his shin and some torn bartape, all is good. He'll also be seeking redemption in Clear Lake. :)

This entry was posted on 7.06.2009 at 5:53 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.