Fabrice's Winters Road Race Report

Event: Winters Road Race, Pro 1/2
Date: 8/29/2009
Result: 2nd of 70
Team: Rand, Billy, Bo, Greg and Thomas

Course: 4 laps, 24 miles per lap, mostly flat, a few rollers, one short climb with a technical descent and good pavement. The climb, which comes about half-way through the course just past the feed zone, is mostly shallow, tipping upward a little toward the end.

Weather: very hot (110 degrees) and dry

Race:
The start was at 8:00am after an early wake up (4:30am) and a long trip to Winters. Just on the top of the major climb I felt that my rear wheel was flat, I looked on the back and didn't see the neutral car, I was thinking that this race was starting very badly for me. But when Billy caught me, he offered me his wheel. So we made the exchange and I started again, leaving Billy in a bad situation. After 2 miles of pursuit I caught the field. I was little bit anxious to know what happened to Billy. After the race, he told us that the neutral car asked him the number of the guy who put wheels in for the team (Bo put the wheels in), but Billy didn't know Bo's number and he had to argue with the guy to finally get a wheel!

During the second lap, a group of 2 or 3 guys succeeded to take an advantage on the field but the real race was not really on. On the climb I saw a little group which was creating so a jumped on it and tried to take a big pull on the descent with the help of Rand. We got a gap but CalGiant was not in the break, so we were caught after a few miles. Then the race was on, attacks on attacks, we tried to put each time a Webcor inside. After 10 miles I succeeded to get in a good move. All 6 were motivated to put that escape on the way. In the feed zone our advantage was around 1min 30sec, and on the descent we were very surprised to see a guy closing the gap alone, so soon we were 7 in the group. We worked all together and the field was not able to catch us. The heat was very high and I think that I broke my record of bottles consumed in a race. Thanks Amy for the feed zone support.

After the descent our group was beginning to play. There were some attacks and after one of them we were 3 in the front, and the two most dangerous guys where not there, so I took some big pulls in order to stay in the front with that group. The thing that I didn't know is that the two guys had a flat at the same time, so the victory would be given to one of our 3. Maybe I've made too much work until the end but for the final sprint, the two guys attacked me all the time. With 500 meters to the finish line one guy attacked and the other looked at me, so I was obliged to launch my sprint from too far away. I caught and passed the first guy but in the last 50 meters the other guy passed me. So, 2nd place for me. Rand was close behind for a top 10 finish as well.

Thanks for reading,
Fabrice