VeloDoc Pippin!! Spring into the Autobahn Crit...

Taken from the finish line video from last weeks race...

Spring into the Autobahn

This is quickly becoming one of my favorite races. It is on a car/motorcycle race track that is only a few years old.

Track (pave, curbs, width, everything)= Awesome! Promoter/Club (South Chicago Wheelman) = Awesome! Proximity = Great! Restrooms = Awesome! Food = Onsite! They even had a changing room this year if you wanted.

my view while pinning up!

So I scheduled myself for 2 races but they were over an apart from each other and it was wet. I told myself that if I get dumped on for the first race I'd probably bag the second race. Only brought one kit. It was pretty cold and windy while I was pinning up and started raining before I was even done.  Although intermittently so warming up wasn't too bad. Warm-up consisted of riding up and down the street a couple times with SuperGirl talking about how cross doesn't seem this cold whats up with that! With that being said and the appearance that we were probably getting wet at some point, tactically, I decided I was going to go hard in this race and then make the decision about the 2nd race afterwards.

We do a pre-lap and I roll around with Mike and Brian. Brian raced earlier and hit the deck in turn 3 so he gave us a little heads up on the track conditions you won't get at pre-lap speeds.

Jerel joins us on the line, it starts a hard drizzle while Dave is talking and explaining how he will stop the race if he has to. The whistle blows and I miss my clip in like three times, haha (new cleat position). I move back up to Mike and Brian, we settle in and ride. Pretty much tuck in and keep from getting pushed to the crappy side of the peloton. Nothing's going, everyone is pretty mellow for the most part. 2nd or 3rd lap I can tell a MACK guy and another guy might be getting a little anxious, I don't know, I could feel it. Going into turn 3 they speed up just a little bit and boom down they go on the wet, shiny, new, high end tar patches that were almost as slick as ice at the right angle. I thought they might try an attack out of that corner, that put the kibosh on that idea the rest of the race.

Its now lightning all around the perimeter of the course off in the distance and then eventually thunder. We keep going. Its getting closer, raining harder. Starting to rain A LOT harder. At this point I put my glasses in my pocket, hard to say whats worse, with or without them. About 2/3rds of the way around the lap this time there rips a huge thunder clap right above our heads. Immediately, I look down at my computer and see that we are 20 something minutes into the race, at least halfway! I start moving up a few spots, this race could be called at the line! Not 5 seconds after I get up to about 5th wheel and we turn down through the right hand sweeper the sky just unloads on us as we turn into the wind, we've got about a 3rd of a lap to go, 2 solid turns and the tailwind run to the line. Squinting hard I'm on the front with the Polish MACK rider and we just go, we didn't have to say anything, we both knew what was up and we were headed to the line. Then Loche shows up in the pace car! Pull off onto pit road and head inside....

After what looks like 12 minutes, give or take, Dave tells us the main field will go back out for 2 laps. Lets go! We line up about 25-30 of us maybe. We take off and I settle in the middle somewhere. It must have really dumped while we out there on that last lap and inside because the puddles are HUGE! Freakin spray all in my face and its way worse when its coming up from the ground than it is coming down from the sky. So I ease up and reach in my back pocket and get my clear safety glasses I got from a friend that used to work at Caterpillar and started to put them back on, except they aren't made to be shoved under ear warmers for outside use and they got these non-reinforced rubber ear pieces and wont slide under my head band. I shove one side under, switch hands on the bars while they are half dangling off my face, shove the other side on, push em up on my face by the nose piece. Rock N Roll good to go.....except I'm like 20 yards off the back now dicking around with these glasses that I should have put back on when we were lining up. Oh, well, get to the middle of the pack first then go from there.

We make the left hand turn headed for the downhillish right hand sweeper. The pace picks up and I'm all over it and fall right in line about 8 wheels back. We head into the fast right sweeper, this was a little slippy through here and this was the spot to take a little risk in the wet and potentially get a big advantage, so I did. I'm picking off guys one by one fast keeping my eye on the the 3 off the front with about 3 seconds gap. By the time we are approaching the second to last turn the only guys in front of me are those 3, one is rocking all over the place on his bike, one is steady, and one is fading. I just keep my pace, going into the last turn on the 2 in front of me. I let them lead through the turn and hold it for a few seconds after the turn then go. One is gone and out of my forward peripheral vision, but one is right there and i'm gaining on him. 

Photo: Jim Scott @otb4evr

 I come up the right side of him and see the line as we are pretty even and do a P5 Tim "Quadzilla" Henry bike throw at the line and take it and also beat out a hard charging Joe Berenyi on my far left who I saw in my peripheral just as I threw. Finish required camera analysis by the officials. Brought home the hardware with an instinctive textbook throw for 2nd place!! I guess I'm a "mudder" as a Twitter friend (@pbmdvm) put it. 

Sprint for 2nd & 3rd at the line.

My first podium since I started racing bikes again after my 5 year hiatus.