Napa Downtown Grand Prix

Josh, Sean, Justin, Clint, Randy, and I showed up for this short track lollipop shaped crit. The weather was super hot and so was the racing. Once again the BPG / Montano Velo boys rode a great team race, covering or initiating just about every break that went up the road. About half way through the race Sean got away with JAndy Mondonca in what turned out to be the move of the day. Unfortunately Sean wasn’t able to hang with JAndy’s 54x11 pedal mashing. Josh then got off the front to try to chase JAndy back with Sean. After that counter came back it was Justin’s turn to try to get up to JAndy. He crossed 15 seconds of the 20 second gap in just a couple of laps. It looked like Justin was going to catch JAndy and be able to go for the win when he washed out in the hairpin turn. With five laps to go I put in a big attack and got a decent gap off the front of the pack. With three to go I was cought by what I thought was just Kevin Klein and Phil Zajkek, but may have in fact been the entire pack. After letting each of them take two pulls, so I could recover, I pulled through hard into the head wind and through the hairpin. I saw that I had gapped the field, cuz Phil and Kevin had sat up, so I accelerated hard down the tailwind start/ finish straight to get my gap back. I stayed clear until half a lap to go when I was cought by two chasers just as I was hitting the headwind. I was able to get the wheel of the Lombardi’s rider who was just sitting on Rand Miller to block for JAndy. I was able to pass the Lombardi’s rider in the hairpin the final time with some good momentum and took Sergei’s advice from the sidelines to put in one more big effort, to outsprint Rand for the second place finish.