Watsonville Crit Report

Greg Davis is back from his racing hiatus, starting with Watsonville Crit, and has been immediately competetive. It took a while to get results posted, hence the delay in posting a report. Here's Greg's accounting of the events from the July 21st race:

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race: Watsonville Criterium

cat: Pro 1/2

course: 60 laps on a .6 mile circuit on twisty city streets with a short hill to the finish

result: 5th place

teamate: James Badia (9th plus massive prime)

Jackson Stewart (BMC pro) got away early with two riders (including one CalGiant). CalGiant had several riders back in the field who effectively shut down all attempts to chase. I was cornering like a chicken for the first half of the race. This created large gaps and I had to sprint to catch up three or four times a lap. This was very tiring. After I got some confidence and I figured out how to take the corners while holding the wheel in front of me I learned that our pace was actually quite tolerable. Then I understood why James had been yelling at the pack to pick up the pace (I think he called us a bunch of wimps).

Jackson and friends lapped the field about 3/4 through the race. Then with 10 laps to go James won a massive $100 prime.

With 5 laps to go I jumped into the headwind on the backside before the hill taking Eric Riggs of VMG on my wheel. Kevin King of Pegasus joined us with two laps to go.

Eric, I, and Kevin (in that order) finished just inches ahead of the charging pack led by Jackson. James came in near the front of the group.

James very generously split his prime with me thus quintupling my winnings for 5th place.

Greg