The race got underway and thankfully we skipped the stage of pointless meandering that was present at the beginning of Saturday's road race. I was feeling pretty good and worked to stay in the top 5 or so as to stay clear of the chaos that is a D's field in a crit. After a few laps a guy from ODU (Ohio Dominican? I'm not sure, I just know that he had a sweet Bianchi) went off the front on a solo break. The field wasn't really too eager to chase him down right away so he was able to stay away for 2ish laps before a guy from Illinois-Chicago freaked out and insisted that we chase him down immediately. I found his urgency quite funny since there is no way that the ODU guy was going to stay away the whole race, but I was more than content to just sit there and let him and his teammates chase down the break while towing the field behind them.
After the UIC guys pulled the solo break in I looked back and noticed that about 2/3 of the field was gone. We somehow managed to drop most of the field without really going that hard or making any attempts to get away. No complaints though as I was now pretty much guaranteed a top 20 finish. I just hung out at the back of the group now as most of the sketchier riders were gone and I didn't really feel like doing any work. We had a few prime laps mixed in there, but since the reward for getting them is essentially nothing I didn't waste any energy going for them.
Before I knew it the 4 laps to go sign came up. I was still just content to sit in for a few more laps as the pack got more tense. John was yelling at me to move up in the field (which I probably should have), but I didn't feel like working quite yet. Memories of being at the front and getting boxed in at the Lindsey Wilson crit were still there so I made sure to avoid putting myself back into that situation. As the one lap to go sign came up I started making my move.
As we hit the backstretch I started moving up the field until I was at the front with 2 turns to go. I stayed there as we went through the little uphill section and through the turn onto the home stretch. I started thinking that I might make it two wins in a row when suddenly a guy from Case Western Reserve University jumped out from behind me and went early on the final sprint in a bit of strategy that would pay off for him. I started my sprint a little later with the slim hope of running him down before the finish line. Really though, I was just racing to save 2nd place. I wasn't able to catch him, but I was able to hold off the rest of the field and cross the line in second. And to make things better 2 guys from MSU finished in the top 10 as well, so the state of Michigan made up almost 1/3 of the top 10! Top 25 results shown below:
This weekend also marked the end of my career in D's as I have since upgraded to C's! I can't wait to race with all of my teammates in C's as we can potentially field a team of 8ish guys and pull all sorts of strategy to get our guys on the podium. I'll be making my C's debut on March 30 at Marian University. Due to the setup of the Marian race having both a collegiate and USAC race back to back I'll also be racing with my teammates in the USAC Cat 4/5 race the same day.
Well that wraps up the weekend of racing at DePauw. Next up was a trip south to Georgia. I'll be writing an entry for that trip so check back soon!
Great job!
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