Here Comes the Boom.

The Sonic Boom Crit that is. After a couple of weekends off from racing due to a meet and a trip to FLA I was back at it on Saturday. The main goal here was to set up my teammate Neal Henderson for the win .

The crit was in downtown Louisville and was a figure 8 design with 8 turns and it was very fast and very tight. Neal and I met up and rode out to the race and as we watched the group before us we noticed a couple of things...it was going to be a long thin line for a lot of the race and a break could get away.

The race started fast and I mean fast. That first 20 minutes were as uncomfortable as I have ever been in a crit. I managed to stay mentally tough enough to last through that bit and by 30 min in I was even able to get in a break. It was short lived and in retrospect a pretty bad idea. I sat in the pack for a lap or so hoping I could recover. With about 15 minutes to go Jeff Hartmann got away and got a pretty solid gap. With 6 to go, he was up 30 seconds and it looked as though we may be racing for 2nd. However, a prime for the field was put up and that acceleration cut 10 seconds from the lead. It was motivating for the field.

Mix 1 put a couple guys at the front to bring it back. Their guy, Dan Schmatz, is among the best sprinters around and they wanted it together. I wanted it back together to give Neal a shot so I went up to help out. I hit the front for the second time in the chase with about 3 1/2 to go and hit the gas. It was the best I had felt all day and as we went through 3 to go I looked back to see a gap. I eased up a little and then pulled some more and with 2 to go I was ready to pull off, but then there Jeff was, less than 10 sec up the road. I though to myself, I got one more and laid down another lap and as I pulled off on the last lap we were 20 feet behind him. I was happy to see that Neal was in the group, but shocked to see that the group was only 20 big, so I wound it up to try and pick off a couple places.

In the end, Neal got a little pinched in the sprint and took 10th and Schmatz won it (great race by Mix1) and I picked off a couple of guys for 16th. I had felt really bad for a lot of the day, but it was good to be competitive feeling bad.