Modesto Road Race

Randy, British Dave, and I lined up for this hot flat central valley sprint fest. After two laps of constant attacking from the field everyone decided nothing was going to get away and the peleton settled in for a cruisy morning. Every once in a while someone would decide that a break might work afer all and attack, but to no avail as Daniel Holloway(VMG/Felt) was too angry at everyone for stting on his wheel every time he did anything - as well as the fact that BPG worked him over the previous day in the crit, with Victor Rapinski getting the win – so he almost single handedly kept the race together. Clint Rogers was my savior sitting in the feed zone today as it was at least 90 degrees out there. I must have drank 9 bottles in the 3 hour race. Unfortunateley Randy flatted about halfway through the race and couldn’t get back to the field. With about a lap and a half left in the eight lap race I got into a good group of 7 attacking riders that was rolling through well together at over thirty mph, but after five minutes or so of freedom we were reeled back in, cementing the certainty of a field sprint in my mind. As we went through the bell for the final lap Joel Robertson attacked and tried to draw out some others to go with him, but nobody else wanted to challenge the McGuire train which was controlling the front for their sprinter Darren Basso. McGuire burned through all of their men keeping Joel at 20 seconds for the last lap and didn’t save anyone beseides Darren for the sprint which proved costly for them. After catching the cat 4s and Joel with 2km to go we had to race sise by side with the cat 4s, who were going into their finish as well, as the moto escort were taking care of a big crash in the 4s field that had just happened. At 1k to go British Dave put the nail in the coffin of the McGuire train by drilling it hard up the left hand gutter. There was a lot of elbow banging going into the last corner at 250 meters to go, but I ended up coming through in 4th, on Danny’s wheel. John Wilk opened up the sprint up the right of the road and Danny went left. We easily passed John and I came out of Danny’s slipstream with fifty meters to go, but didn’t have the power to come around the sprinting beast that is Daniel Holloway. Oh well, second in a road race is not too bad.