Sea Otter Circuit (NRC) Race Report

The Go Green Gumby Warriors were out in force this weekend to tackle the Sea Otter NRC Circuit Race and the Santa Cruz Crit. With several continental pro teams in town for the weekend, it turned out to be a real suffer fest. Here's how it went…

Sea Otter Pro/1/2 NRC Circuit Race
Laguna Seca Raceway – scheduled for 31 laps, ~70 miles
Field: 100++
Webcor AV Riders: Jono Coulter, Rob MacNeill, Matt Beebe, Dominic
Giampaolo, James Badia and myself
Place: DNF

Ah, the spectacle that is Sea Otter. I briefly remember saying to myself last year as I was leaving Sea Otter after the Elite 3 RR something to the effect: "Man, Sea Otter is such a circus! Why did I come here!?!? Is it really worth the $45 entry fee to deal with all the people, parking and traffic issues, clash of two worlds (roadies vs. BMX and downhill racers), mud, and plain old chaos?!?!? I'm never coming back here!!!" Well, apparently I forgot about all that when I signed up for the NRC Circuit Race a few weeks ago. The draw of racing on the perfectly smooth and pothole free pavement of the Laguna Seca raceway was too much. This is one of the few local NRC races where the Cat 2's are included with the Pro's and Cat 1's. There were several pro teams in attendance, BMC, Priority Health, Jelly Belly, Successful Living, and Kodak Gallery, so it was bound to be a real suffer fest.

Matt and I left Menlo Park at 9am under partly cloudy skies on Sat to head to the race. By the time we got to Seaside we were engulfed in a torrential downpour. We came to a crawl while driving on highway 1, trying not to hydroplane on the standing water covering the highway. (Later I find out this was about the time when the women's NRC race was canceled midway through due to the cold and rain: http://www.velonews.com/race/dom/articles/12062.0.html ). As we pulled into the Laguna Seca raceway we were shuffled towards the grassy/muddy parking lots a LONG ways from registration. Luckily we called Rob and Dominic and found out that we could get through the blockade to the VIP parking for the NRC racers. YES!!!

After registering, we then found out that our race was postponed from 1 to 2pm. By 2pm the rain had let up slightly and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. After riding a few warm up laps and getting soaking wet, we made our way over to the start line. After everyone got lined up, they announced that they are delaying the race start AGAIN to 2:30pm so that they can clean some of the mud and debris off the race course. I quickly road back to the car to get my rain vest and then meet up with the rest of the team huddled in James' van.

Finally we line up again at the start line. The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up and it was getting quite cold. I was shivering uncontrollably and almost couldn't keep the bike going straight as I rolled up to the start line. But once the race started I warmed up quickly, ditching the rain jacket after just two laps. Right off the bat, guys were attacking. The beginning part of the climb was not bad as there was a tail wind, but the steeper section at the top was quite hard. The wind had picked up and was coming from our left as we crested the top of the hill. I've never been in a race like this where the pack was guttered along the side of the road on a steep climb. Crazy!!! The corkscrew descent was interesting as well. The crosswind would try to pick up the bike and move me right as I tried to negotiate the high speed turns… on the wet roads none-the-less.

Ted had warned us before the race, that while the climb was tough, the real hard part comes along the flat sections when crosswinds split the field. Basically, there is no time to recover before the climb begins again. Well, that's exactly what happened. I was climbing okay with the group, but when they started attacking and drilling it on the flat, crosswind sections, the pack basically blew up. Dominic, James and I made it about 10 laps with the main group before all three of us got gapped off on the same lap. Rob, Jono and Matt came off the back a little while before that. Obviously USADA didn't see Rob's lackluster performance as he got the "Pro" experience of being subjected to doping control through random selection after getting dropped, pretty funny. What started off as a field of well over 100 was now less than half that. Only 42 were listed in the final results.

In the end, it was a brutal race, but all of us survived the experience. Luckily, none of us were involved in any crashes! Many thanks to James' wife, Adina, for braving the weather to feed us during the race!!!

-Peter