Race: Dana Pt. Grand Prix
Category: Men's P/1 NRC Race
Date: 26 April 2009
Team: Rob MacNeill (51st of 100+), Rand Miller (53rd), Justin Fraga (75th)
How did I end up writing this report? Rand and Justin actually saw the front of this race, I never did, unless you count seeing the lead guy in the distance past a big pack of riders.
Anyhow, Dana Pt. GP is a criterium held down in The OC. It's only 3 years old but got NRC status this year and had a sizable purse, so it attracted a big P/1 field. The course was a clockwise 6-turn L-shaped course over 0.8 miles of good pavement. There were a few undulations along the course, but nothing that difficult climbing wise. I liked the flow of the course.
Our race was a weird one. Somehow, it was one of the easier races I've done all season (not what I was expecting from an NRC crit!), yet it was impossible to move around comfortably. I think this was due to the large field on relatively narrow roads. We'd go into the corners curb to curb, requiring a lot of braking, then accelerating, and repeating. I did try to move up many times but it was sort of scary and always resulted in near misses or run-ins with a log-jam of riders trying to do the same thing. Shuffle up, shuffle back...
So, after a while, I resigned myself to a nice motorpacing session and getting home with all my skin. Rand and Justin were more successful than I in participating in the upfront activities. Rand was even in a move attacking off the front for two laps. In the end though, we all had the same self-preservation sense and finished mid-pack out of harms way. Not that exciting, but that's how it went.
Category: Men's P/1 NRC Race
Date: 26 April 2009
Team: Rob MacNeill (51st of 100+), Rand Miller (53rd), Justin Fraga (75th)
How did I end up writing this report? Rand and Justin actually saw the front of this race, I never did, unless you count seeing the lead guy in the distance past a big pack of riders.
Anyhow, Dana Pt. GP is a criterium held down in The OC. It's only 3 years old but got NRC status this year and had a sizable purse, so it attracted a big P/1 field. The course was a clockwise 6-turn L-shaped course over 0.8 miles of good pavement. There were a few undulations along the course, but nothing that difficult climbing wise. I liked the flow of the course.
Our race was a weird one. Somehow, it was one of the easier races I've done all season (not what I was expecting from an NRC crit!), yet it was impossible to move around comfortably. I think this was due to the large field on relatively narrow roads. We'd go into the corners curb to curb, requiring a lot of braking, then accelerating, and repeating. I did try to move up many times but it was sort of scary and always resulted in near misses or run-ins with a log-jam of riders trying to do the same thing. Shuffle up, shuffle back...
So, after a while, I resigned myself to a nice motorpacing session and getting home with all my skin. Rand and Justin were more successful than I in participating in the upfront activities. Rand was even in a move attacking off the front for two laps. In the end though, we all had the same self-preservation sense and finished mid-pack out of harms way. Not that exciting, but that's how it went.
Some highlights were Justin almost being taken out by a pedal clipping Floyd Landis (he saved it). I was right there when it happened, thinking Floyd must be rusty at crits and that I'm better than him. Then a few laps later, I did the same thing. Justin also had a near miss with the pavement when Tony Cruz decided to play bumper cars on a charge to the front. We all left without crashing so the day was success in my opinion.
Congratulations to the Webcor Pro Women for going 1-2 in their crit. They had a great race.
-Rob
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