Napa Downtown Crit Report

Jeez, this race was shocking: super fast, super technical, super hot ,and just plain hard. W/AV did very well with 2 in the top 10 and 3 of about only 15 that finished. It was a crazy race. Below is Rand's report.

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2008 Napa Downtown Crit
6/21/08
Napa, CA
Weather: ~100 Degrees and really really windy
Teammates: James Badia, Aroussen Laflamme, Rob Macneill, Chris Crawford,
Jeff Williams
Finish: 3rd of ~60

First and foremost, this was the most insane (and most awesome) crit course I have ever seen. Set in downtown Napa, the course was less than a half-mile long, with lots of tight corners. From the start-finish line, the course dives onto a very small, narrow 4-corner block and then jumps back onto the split main straightaway. This long straight section of road then terminates in what can only be described as an extended hairpin turn, where the course goes around a triangular median and back onto the front straightaway--overall, we end up turning something like 270 degrees in that crazy turn. Throw some densely packed botts dots, oil-slick pavement, 20 mph wind and 100 degree heat, and you have the makings of some epic crit racing.

As The Crew and I prepped for the race, we discussed strategy...given the crazy conditions, we were thinking breakaway. The race started fast, and I spent some time getting aggro at the front, but breaks were not really sticking and I realized that the heat would make wasting energy a bad idea. The course rapidly began taking its toll on riders, since it required two full-on sprints each lap (onto the headwind section and out of the hairpin). By about halfway through the race, I would estimate that half the field had dropped out (or crashed).

Andy Mendonca from Lombardi attacked with a few other guys around halfway through, and proceeded to drop his breakaway partners by pushing a 53-11 or so the entire time. Several guys would attempt to bridge each lap, and fail. Mendonca dangled about 15 seconds up for a long time, but we played the odds and let other teams try and pull him back rather than expending our guys. Kevin Klein (Rock Racing) and a Healthnet rider stayed near the front and occasionally drove the pace, while BPG launched some fliers here and there, but Mendonca kept rolling. Aroussen put in a solid pull for a lap or two as well, but to no avail. With 3 laps to go, I felt confident in my legs and could sense that the now-15-man "field" was getting tired, so I attacked hard in the headwind section. I drove it as fast as I could for the final 3 laps with a Lombardi guy on my wheel and a BPG guy sitting on him...I just stayed on the front because the Lombardi guy definitely wasnt going to come through and the BPG guy wasnt either, and I felt pretty good about my sprint out of the hairpin. I think I waited a lap too long to attack, because I wasnt able to close the gap to Mendonca and I could see him posting up a victory salute about 5 seconds ahead as I started my sprint. The BPG guy (JD Bergman, who is riding quite strong these days)
came around and beat me by about half a bike length. I was bummed that I couldnt close to Andy, and that I got beat on the line, but I was happy with the race overall. James and Aroussen finished strong, with James coming in at 9th, in spite of being caught up in a crash with less than 15 minutes to go.

Not a particularly team-tactical event, but a really fun and technical race. I hope that they put the same course on next year, and I would encourage everyone to go try it!

Rand