OK, I take back all the bad things I said about 'cross racing.

It's pretty darned fun when you feel fit and can battle for a win. I felt killer today, and although I didn't exactly battle for the win, I like to think I could have if things had gone just a little differently...

The start went good, I jumped easily to second wheel from the second row. Right away the group of 5 riders formed and included myself, John Funke, Mark and Chance Noble and Justin Robinson. For the first 3 laps we did take turns making it fast, but noone could really comit to breaking the group down further. I felt good so I tried a couple times.

We all resigned ourselves to riding around together at about the halfway mark, it was feeling pretty casual. Now and then someone would punch it, but to no avail. With 5 laps to go, I think, I went into the pits area on Justin's wheel and he hit the gas out of the corner. As he did that, my rear tire let go and I started doing donuts... I ended up on my ass. My right side remount came in handy as I quickly got on my bike. Mark came around me and promptly stuffed it into the very next corner, about 30' up the track. I t-boned his bike and got tangled up for a few seconds. Once I got him out of the way I pinned it for as long as I could, but Justin was gone. This is how the race finished up with Justin winning, me second and Mark 3rd. Justin's gap was up to almost 30 seconds at one point I think, and I brought it down to under 10, so I feel good about that.

The thing that sucks is that I used my less expensive challenge tires, a grifo 30 in front and a file tread in the back and that rear tire was problematic in the dry flat grass. That rear file tread is why I crashed. I totally looped out the same way when I was warming up- I went into a big sweeping right and ended up pointing the wrong way on the course! So I was pretty much ready for it in the race, but it took me down at the worst moment. Oh well, if I'd run the good tires I probably would have gotten a peice of glass or a nail through them and not even finished. My teammate Larry Bullard got an old rusty nail through his tubular- in one side and out the other!

It was a super fun race and an awesome sunny norcal day. It was fun to race at noon and get to watch the Womens race after. The big news of the day is that my teammate Shelly Olds won the womens race, beating Rachel Lloyd. Rachel did have a mechanical problem which gave Shelly her opportunity, but Shelly raced like a pro and sealed the deal with several fast and solid laps.

I think motor pacing the other day was just the thing to sharpen my fitness, I feel like I can race again and that's a relief after the last few weeks.