Tuesday Night at the Oval (Wherein I Do Okay)

There was a small-ish group for Tuesday’s race–only 21–and quite a few first time racers. A handful of riders promoted themselves to the B race, but a few of the fast guys were still around. I suspected that the quick Roomful Express rider, who is usually in the thick of things, would just go ahead and lap the field tonight. My unstated goal was to stay with the pack, and given my performance in Oakmont last Saturday, who knows what tonight would bring.

Off we went, and up went the pace. I sat in the last quarter of the group. The pace began to climb a bit more as a rider went off the front. The group strung out a bit, and I was worried that I might be missing a selection, but before I needed to move around and catch on, someone else a few bikes pushed forward a bit, and we remained in the bunch. Someone next me (a relatively new face at the Oval, though apparently a racer) was complaining about the pace. I wanted to point out that this was, you know, a race, but kept my mouth shut. I made the mistake of looking at my computer when we went over the start/finish line, and when I saw 30mph, I was just about ready to accept the inevitable and give up staying with the group. What’s worse, on the next lap, I looked up to check the lap count, and saw “25” on the board. Mistakenly, I thought “oh my, we’ve only done 5 laps. My goose is cooked.” A lap later my brain sorted it out, and informed me that we had, in fact, done 10 laps, and if I hung on just a little longer, the pace would become more reasonable.

Around lap 15 things did, indeed, calm down, and soon enough I was coasting down the back straight and enjoying the pace. The group was a bit squirrelly, and there was one interesting moment in the first corner, but no one actually went down (lesson learned: always stay low in the turns–it’s safer there). With five laps to go, I heard one of the marshals say “it might get pretty hard now” to one of the new racers, and I prepared myself to suffer a bit more, but the surge never happened, at least until the last lap. The pace quickened, but it wasn’t completely unreasonable, and as we entered the last corner, I was happy to achieved my goal. Then, people started going backward. Certainly, I picked up my pace, but I was hardly sprinting (and I wasn’t out of the saddle), yet there I was, passing people. I shifted and passed a few more people. Hmmm. Maybe I can catch those guys? I went again, a bit harder, and nearly pipped them at the line, and ended up with 6th place. Not bad, not bad.

Let’s see if I can keep this up.