Burnham Race-South Beloit 3-27-10

The Burnham race in South Beloit was 55minutes, which is longest circuit race that I have ever done. I have done longer road races, but not circuit races. The weather was mostly cloudy and cool with temperatures in the mid 40's with probably 5-10 mile per hour winds.

I did a warm up lap and then they told me while I was in the staging area that I couldn't use my Catlike helmet and that it wasn't USAC certified. WTF? I don't get it, the pros are using them so why can't I? This didn't start me off on a good mood.

I had two team mates Brian and Travis, we had no plans for the race. This was Travis's first race of the year. He is looking very strong. There were a lot of breaks with a lot of chasing.

This race was held at Black Hawk Raceway, which is a race track and that was neat. I felt like the racers weren't riding very smooth. You had to constantly paying attention to who was around you. There was a lot of bunching up in the corners when the pace would slow down. The pace seemed to slow down more in the back section and then when we would get to the tailwind the pace would ramp up.

I did a no no! Travis was in a group with about 12 racers and I bridged my way up, but was pulling the whole field. I shouldn't have done that. I was catching that group at a good clip and then Travis went in the front to pull and he made me work really hard to bridge the gap. When I finally made it across I felt like pucking. It took me a while to recover from that. Sorry, Travis, I should have let it go and saw what would have happened.

Alright with 3 laps to go I was towards the back of the pack and needed to get my ass towards the front. I kept moving forward and on the last lap, I heard a guy talking to his team mate and he looked as if he was a strong sprinter. I stayed on his wheel, but he didn't have any help from his team mates, so just before the last corner he was done. Then there were other riders that came blasting around and I didn't chase at all. I simply gave up and sat up through the start line. By the way the finishing straight was over 500 meters, that is a long finishing straight. The season is long and it is still very early. The WCA cup series starts in two weeks and I will hopefully be able to do better. Travis finished in 6th, Brian 25th, and myself 27th.