Rubbing is racing is a great quote from an even better movie, Days of Thunder. If you haven't seen it, stop reading this, go watch it, and then post a comment about how I just changed your life after.
The obvious difference between Tom Cruise and his Mountain Dew Chevy and how this quote applies to my races is that I'm not inside of a Mountain Dew Chevy. Sure rubbing is a part of racing and there are certain times in a bike race where two competent riders actually keep themselves from falling by leaning on each other. Notice the word competent used in the previous sentence.
The race was going as most 5 races due. Everybody confusing cornering on your bike to the same as in a go-kart where you try and hug the inside as closely as possible so nobody can pass you. This makes for some very interesting lines going both in and out of the corners. At one point a guy to my left was touched by someone else. He freaked out, screamed and then dove his right shifter directly into my hip. I casually gave him a polite, get the f-bomb off of me nudge back into the group. He didn't go down, but I have no idea how. This was the first of 3 times I was assaulted. And not because someone was trying to fit into a spot they couldn't, but because they wigged out and I happened to the be the closest guy for them to try and kill.
The Men's 5 race was delayed due to some crash in the Women's 4. They didn't tell us that due to this delay our race would be cut short so they could stay on schedule. We didn't learn this nifty bit of info until we came through the start finish about 20 minutes after starting and they were ringing a bell so I looked over and saw a lap card with a 1 on it. I sort of freaked out and over reacted because I was nowhere near the front. I knew I needed to be at the front because I was going to try and sprint. Instead of doing the smart thing and waiting for some wheels to follow that would deposit me at the front, I just decided to move up myself. This turned out to be genius because there was a huge pile up in turn 1, which my over reaction put me in front of. Coming out of turn three there were two more crashes. One of them was directly beside me. I still can't figure out why this guy fell down. I heard a crash a few spots behind us and then all of the sudden homeboy to my right just flails out and is sliding across the pavement. My best guess is that it was basically the equivalent of a sympathy puker; someone else crashed so he thought he had to as well.
While I wasn't behind this crash it did disrupt my ability to follow some wheels close to the front for the sprint. The front 5 guys put their heads down and drove hard. The next 3-4 guys behind them couldn't match the effort and I had to get myself around them to try and rejoin the front. I never really got myself into a good position to sprint but I did take back some spots and ended up 7th out of what started as 35-40. Who knows how many official finishers there were with all the crashing on the last lap.
Top 10 is ok I guess but what's really important is that my ass did not end up on the pavement. I made it through all the Early Birds with out a single crash. I was pretty sure that it was bound to happen at least once. Luckily I avoided them. The upgrade request is in and so next I'll be racing as a 4. I'm not sure it's really going to be that much safer, but in theory the people should have some experience.
And the only person that will be sad about this is my mom, but all the Feb. races filled up so I won't race again until a stage race the 2nd weekend in March. I'm pretty stoked about it so we'll see what happens. I'm going to use Feb to get in some good smart training and go super long on the weekends.
Here's to keeping the rubber side down!
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