Green days race recap

In retrospect, I was a bit worried with Pete giving me cornering lessons for the race. However, all went well though with me sitting in roughly 4th wheel the entire race and letting the DMOS guys wear themselves out. Herb from A9Y got a small gap with roughly 5 laps left after a prime and the pack seemed pretty intent on letting him set out there. I had the crazy idea of bridging up and trying to make a two man break stick since he only had one other rider in the pack the same as I surrounded by the DMOS guys out in full force. I hit the gas into the corner and thought I opened it up a bit after the corner and started pulling him back in. Alas, my breakaway horsepower is a bit... lacking. I succeeded in dragging the full pack back up with me, oops.

Pete giving me pointers on where to be and something about staying off the front...

With 1 to go I was still in good position and thought I'd try hammering the corners again as I had noted most everyone was a bit lax in charging into the corners letting me come up the outside, late brake, and get a small lead. I looked great for about a 1/4 of a lap and then had plenty of people with me going into the last corner. I took too wide of a line and had a couple guys all ready in front of me heading towards the finish. As mentioned previously, my sprint is nothing short of mediocre and another 3 guys slipped past before we made the line. 6th place out of 17ish riders at the line. With my crit/road racing experience amounting to last year's Green Days and a couple Race like a girl nights, I was pretty happy with the outcome. Thanks to Pete for yelling out the instructions and the rest of the men in black sticking around to cheer on the 5's.

In comparison to last year, I can definitely tell I'm a much stronger rider. It was relatively easy to stay up front, I "think" I possibly had the power to make a break had I truly hammered it and sprinted up to speed versus sitting and trying to pound out the power in my 1 attempt to bridge up. Last year I sat much further back in the pack just trying to hold on and not get tangled up with anyone. I yo-yoed pretty constantly in that attempt and a late race crash pretty much helped me crack the top 10. I feel like I earned the placing this year rather than circumstance dictating as much. I think I probably left too much on the table in regards to effort as once I finished the last lap I still felt pretty fresh even after sprinting up to the middle of zone 5 (193 bpm for me) at the finish line. In the pack I was sitting pretty much in the middle of zone 4 or a little less and feeling like I wasn't making much of an effort other than spinning it back up out of every corner. I've still got a lot to learn and a lot of work to do on my short term explosive power.