Snelling Road Race Report

Race: Snelling RR
Date: 02/24/2007
Cat: P/1/2
W/AV Team: Rob MacNeill, James Badia, Dominic Giampaolo, Matt
Morenzoni and myself
Results: ~20 of 80-100
Total Time for 6 laps was 2:55.

Recap:

Snelling is the traditional start to the racing season for many people in NorCal. This would be my first race of the year, as well as the first for a few others on the W/AV elite team. Not having done any really hard training this winter, I knew it was going to be a bit of a shock to the system. Though, as soon as the promenade toward the course began, I realized how excited I was to be back racing again after the winter break.

The Snelling RR course is your standard VeloPromo circuit in the middle of nowhere with poor to bad road conditions. Luckily, for this race, the entire course is closed to traffic which is helpful
considering the large fields that usually frequent this race. Our race was scheduled for six laps for a total of approximately 86 miles. There was a fairly steady wind coming from the south; nothing too terrible, but still tough none the less. There were several stretches on each lap where the pack was guttered along the edge of the road and drafting did little to conserve energy.

Several teams were well represented at this race, including CalGiant, BPG/MontanoVelo, Davis, Lombardi, etc. We only had five riders at this race, so we were a bit out-numbered right from the start. Our pre-race discussions focused on several points. We knew that with only five guys, we couldn't plan on controlling the entire race so we focused on following any promising breaks and in the event that it came down to a sprint, we would try to set James up for a good finish.
We wanted to go for a good result, but we also wanted to use this race as practice to get our team working well together, i.e. good communication, cooperation and leadership.

Unfortunately we had two casualties early on in the first lap. Dominic, with his "puncture resistant" tubes and tire strips, had a flat right as the race entered the open course. Matt had a hard time recovering after following a blistering attack right from the gun and was gapped off the back in the cross wind section. Dominic, after getting a wheel change, and Matt eventually hooked up together and tried to catch back on to the pack, but the group was in full attack mode during the first lap, which kept the pace quite high.

The pace remained high throughout most of the race as there were constant attacks going off the front. I follow a few during the first two laps, but none were gaining any significant time. These few moves took me a little while to recover from so I was forced to "sit in" (if that's possible when it's single file in a cross wind) for the next few laps. Attacks still continued to go off the front but none were sticking. Throughout the race, James, Rob and I were able to maintain a presence at the front of the group.

On the fifth of six laps, going through the rough section prior to the finish line, a group of 8-10 road off the front. This looked THE move of the day, but unfortunately none of us were in a position to immediately follow it. Both Rob and I, independently, were able to work our way to the front of the pack and attack in an attempt to bridge, but we both only made it halfway. In hindsight, this would have been a good time for the two of us to try to bridge together.

The gap to the lead group stayed at 30-45 seconds for the remainder of the last lap. Heading into the rough section before the finish, I was trying to move up to help James, who was ahead of me, with a leadout for the pack finish. The pace was high and the cross winds were causing numerous gaps to open up. I was attempting to move up across one of these gaps when people everywhere started blowing up. James unfortunately started to cramp as we hit the final turn and I ended up coming around him in an attempt to contest the field sprint. I finished maybe as high as 20th overall, with James and Rob following a little further back (results weren't posted by the time we left).

Overall it was a good first race. While not everyone finished, everyone stayed upright. James, Rob and I were able to communicate well throughout the race, something that we had talked about in our pre-race meeting. If Rob and I had been able to coordinate our bridge attempt to the final break, we might be writing a different race report.

Next week the elite team is headed to McLane where we introduce our new Aussie teammate, Jono, to NorCal racing! It should be fun!

Tailwinds,

Peter