This race could not be less like the Boise Twilight. Its held in the middle of the day in a small development up in the hills that is eerily reminiscent of Pleasantville. There are few spectators and the field has in the past included zero professionals (there was one this year, yippee!) and barely any locals. I think there were just over 30 racers this year. Its enough to make a guy want to hightail it back to California!
The course is 4 corners, with a slight descent after turn one, a wide chicane and long false flat headwind after turn two and a quick 3, 4 and then a narrow little chicane maybe 250 meters before the finish that brings the field down to 1 or 2 abreast. It was hot, but not as hot as the day before. I’d say a much more reasonable 95 or something. Between the heat and a somewhat rowdy night after the Twilight I was not exactly feeling my best, but I’m actually the defending champ so I figured I’d better pull it together.
The race was pretty ridiculous. There were a few half-hearted attacks, but no one who got up the road wanted to work. I covered a few, let a few go, and basically tried to stay interested and remember to drink water. A break had gone the year before and people had won in breaks in just about every category that had already raced, so it seemed inevitable that a break would decide the race.
Sure enough someone finally put in a solid effort and we were a group of 7 working well together and gaining time. Then they rang the bell for a fifty dollar prime (fifty bucks! Thems Twilight figures!) and when nobody jumped immediately Ben King from FlyV took off, all the while looking back as if to say, "Are we racing here or what?" Everyone was just looking around at each other, so I figured this was my chance to whittle it down a bit. I lit out and managed to catch him before the chicane to take the prime. When I looked back we had a gap and I gave it some gas. I couldn’t really think of a better position to be in than up the road with the one guy I knew to be a serious racer.
We were working well together and caught the field before too long, but that’s when things got ugly. We were trading strong pulls, but the field was just sitting on us. That’s not illegal or anything, its just really lame and I told him we should get out of there. His big plan for that? Turn around and wave his hand at the people who had been lapped and tell them to “$&*@ off!” Rude it may be, but what with him flailing around, the look of puzzlement on the faces in the field and his Aussie accent it made for a pretty comical scene.
Alas, he realized why I so badly wanted to get out of there when someone clipped his wheel in the second turn and he took a bad spill. I had been leading through the turn and took the opportunity to get the heck out of there. Ben brushed himself off and jumped back in with me and then it went to laps. He was pretty out of it, his jersey was shredded and he was bleeding a lot, so he said he wouldn’t sprint me if I’d roll it. The officials were yelling something at us, but we couldn’t really understand what. The 5 other guys caught the field and gave good chase, getting the gap down to 7 seconds with 3 to go, but I managed to stay away and take the win.
I’m not saying I don’t like to win, but this one just wasn’t that satisfying. There really wasn’t anything pretty about this race, least of all my salute where I almost crashed (I don’t want to know what Rand would have to say about that). The one guy I would have loved to go head to head with got crashed out, and then the officials took things from bad to worse. They told Ben that because he hadn’t taken a free lap he was one lap down and had finished last out of the people who had lapped the field, outside the money. They didn’t care at all that he had been with me when he crashed, or that it was the Moto Official who told him to jump in with me. They simply would not budge. Seems like an odd way to grow cycling in Idaho doesn’t it? Taking the single real bike racer and just crapping on him. But that’s what happened. Someone asked him if he was from Idaho and he said, “Don’t even start.” And the Aussie accent isn’t as cute deadpan. I ended up splitting my prize money with him, but that was small consolation as a win in the Idaho State Crit is worth less than 22nd at the Twilight. Oh well.
I rode a good race, felt strong and didn’t crash trying to post up, so I’ll count it as a success. Alas, my license says California on it, so I did not get my Idaho State Crit Champ T-shirt/Jersey thingy this year, but someone out there has it and is loving it.
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