Natz

Nationals was easily the hardest race of the year. Bend was hot, although not as hot as last year, and Craddock won everything.

We had a great showing, and we raced together really well.

Together in the crit everyone managed to finish unscathed, but still with some troubles. Turn 3 constricts the course from a 3 lane road to a one and a half lane wide road. Early in the race I was at the front taking advantage of it. Each lap the leaders would charge into the corner forcing everyone behind to chase hard. At the front, I buried myself to keep the pace high and force separations. Unfortunately going into the sketch-corner, some jokers attack on the inside, the group is seven wide, we are going to crash. Right then people crashed. I saw it coming and managed to just have to unclip and drop a chain. I took a a free lap, but USAC doesn't put me in at the front third of the field where I was. The official lets me start halfway through the bunch which means by the time I am up to speed I am holding on to the back for dear life. Two laps later, another crash. Two more, I flat. Same procedure for being put in. At this point any plan we had was crashed, scraped, and flatted apart.

The road race consisted of frenetic attacks and more chaos. 200 meters into the race I heard scraping and snapping and a spoke flying by my head. I see Torey on the ground, and a Specialized S-Works tumbling down the road. And then there were seven. Every rider fought to get to the front, only to get there and realize that nothing was happening. The first two laps followed this pattern, the second two were chaos. My plan was to roll off the front with one and a half laps to go to draw out some of the team's threats. I rolled off, got a gap, and riders bridged. We were working well together, until all of a sudden the group was there. Up the first of several climbs a rider attacked. I tried to follow, blew up and sank like a stone. Getting back into the group up the climb took everything I had. Unfortunately by then Craddock attacked again and the field was completely strung out. Andrew Lanier and I got caught in the second split in the group. We tried to pull back our group single handedly, which didn't work. Eventually, with a half lap to go, I got people working. The two of us got a breather, but were still gassed. Organization blew apart in the last kilometer. We thought it was unsportsmanlike like to sprint. Others didn't. From puling the group for 18 kilometers we were blown and couldn't sprint. So much for sportsmanship.

In the end the racing was good, and we worked well together. Every success was a team effort, I just fell on bad luck.