My Deland Race Report...

I havn't really writted any race reports lately so I figure I'd ease myself back into it with a quick little post about last weekends Deland Omnium.

Saturday's Ford Road Race
There had been enough rain to fill all the pot holes with water and bring the humidity level up to about 157%. My race was scheduled for 8 laps of a 7 mile loop. Unfortunately, I would only see about 18 of the 56 mile road race.

For some reason the promoter thought it would be a good idea to cram both the Cat.3 and Cat.4 fields into the same race. So with the "yellow-line rule in effect", it was next to impossible to move up in the field or see anything in the road. On the first trip around the 7-mile course somebody went straight into the biggest pot-hole ever and broke his stem. He didn't go down, but his race was certainly over.

In the laps that followed, the field became pretty nervous as we approached the area that the pot-holes were in...and on the third lap that nervousness resulted in a crash right in the middle of the field. I tried to go around, but others began to go down right in front of me. These crashes always happen so quick and the next thing I know I'm sliding on my head and left shoulder through the palmatto brush that laid next to the road. Luckily for me there was a nice little palm tree that stopped my forward motion. Aside from getting the wind knocked out of me and a collection of little scratches, both myself and my bike would live to race another day.

Sunday's Deland Circut Race
I abstained from the time trial on saturday afternoon. I'd like to say that I was too shaken up from the crash to compete, but while that may have had a little to do with it, I really didn't have much intention of doing the TT in the first place (something about seeing my name last on the result sheet just seemed depressing).

So I ventured back to Deland on Sunday after a restful stay at my folks house in Orlando. The rain was off and on all day which created some slick corners, but fortunately the rain stayed mostly off during our Cat.4 race. I uncharacteristically covered a couple of early breaks at the urging of my teamate which made me feel like a team-player, albeit a tired team-player.

Overall I felt good and stayed close to the front. I was able to go where I needed to go and didn't have any problems following attacks. As the race started biulding to it's climactical finish I knew that I wasn't going to have the legs needed to sprint with the favorites, so instead, I launched myself off the front of the field as we crossed the start/finsh line with one lap to go. I knew the 1.2 mile course was going to be too long for me to stay away, but my intention was to be more of a catalyst for a nice fast last lap, thus giving my teamates a smoother finish as opposed to the entire field trying to squeeze through the last wet corner before opening up into a kamakazi-like sprint. Maybe deep down, after saturday's crash, I didn't really want to be in the field for the last wet corner, and blowing myself up before the sprint seemed like a better alternative?

Anyway, I did indeed blow up after only a quarter mile at 30+ mph. Once caught, I dangled just off the back of the field for the remainder of the last lap and rolled through the finish line healthy, happy and in one piece. My team "leader" took a top-ten finish and was happy with the way we rode as a team...so in the end I felt like the race was a success for me.