Menlo Park Grand Prix

(Posted By Dylan Clark)

I Made the drive down to my 1:00 race that very same morning, and
arrived to blue skies and no wind. About 75 people showed up in my
catergory overall.

the first ten laps or so brought a few failed breakaway attempts, and
everything ran smoothly for a while. There were a few webcor guys
that were clearly interested in controlling the latter part of the
race. with eight to go a webcor rider shot off the front in the back
straight. i looked around me and noticed two or three of his
teammates in the top fifteen of the field. i decided to jump and pull
him in about a lap later, with help from only one other rider whos
name i dont know.

there were a few textbook anticipation laps before the bells rang.
the finishing straight was a bit long so i was planning on being
about seventh wheel out of the final corner, but unfortunately things
didnt go that way. on the back straight i saw what i thought was the
final surge before the sprint, however when i got going the riders in
front of me slowed down tremendously upon entering the second from
last corner. i was completely boxed in and thought i was finished.
somewhere in the short distance between the last two corners i just
threw my elbows and forced my way out, causing a few skids... but
hey, they were where i needed to be.

out of the last corner i was sitting about 12th and swung wide, and
got around a few guys. the top seven was now spread out across the
road pretty well, so i hooked up on the back of a webcor rider at the
far left side of the street. at about 30 meters to go i gunned it for
the gutter and clipped the guy at the line, nearly running into the
finishing structure.

my next race is the Land Park crit, followed by the road race in
Zamora the next day, hopefully ill see a few of you guys up there!