Rockabilly Gran Prix

It's been a little while since I've posted here.  Since my last post I've done several races, both on-road and off-road.  Lately I've been doing more road events in an effort to move out of the Cat 4s into Cat 3. My goal is to move up before the end of the season so I can do some Cat 3 races this year.

This past weekend was the Rockabilly Gran Prix in Jackson, TN.  It consisted of a road race Saturday morning, TT Saturday evening, and crit Sunday.  We drove down Friday night because Karah's race was early Saturday morning.  Mine wasn't until noon so I had some time to wait around.  It was overcast but the forecast was only calling for a chance of rain.  The chance of rain turned into a downpour about an hour and a half before my race.  It seemed to rain hard and then stop and it repeated this cycle every ten minutes or so.

Luckily it stopped raining when I needed to get ready and start my warm-up.  There was about 40 guys in the field.  Our race was four laps around an 11 mile loop.  The first mile or so was a neutral start.  The race was pretty calm the first lap.  I started towards the back and was able to move up by the end of the lap.  The craziness started at the first of the second lap.

Less than a mile in, a see and hear the ominous sounds of a crash happening directly in front of me, about 3 riders up.  I'm on the far right of the road next to the shoulder, and that is where the crash is happening.  I'm fortunately able to move to the left to avoid everyone crashing in front of me.  I don't know how I made it through upright.  The craziest part of the crash was someones rear wheel rolling past me down the road and then crossing in front of me before going into the other lane.

Someone at the front of the pack, after hearing the crash, attacked (which is pretty bush-league) - once he attacked even sped up to stay with him.  I was fortunately able to accelerate and get on the back of what was a 10 or 15 person break.  This group stayed together the rest of the race, but no one really got in a good rhythm of a pace line.  One of the juniors seemed to want to attack every time he took a pull, which got annoying.

This was supposed to be a four lap race, but the official told us after we started our third lap that this would be the last.  The real racing began at this point as everyone realized we had about 8 miles to the finish.  Unfortunately, about a mile from the finish the official comes back up and says the race is cancelled and all the finish line officials were told to take cover because there was a tornado warning for the area.  So we basically raced in the rain for over an hour and a half to not get a result.

The TT later that day was uneventful - I got 8th out of 18 - not bad but not as good as I had hoped.

The crit the next day was also pretty uneventful - I ended up getting 9th out of 28.  I felt good throughout the race but wasn't nearly in the position I wanted to be on the last lap - that is definitely something I have to work on.