Allen Park Recap

First off....THE CAT 4 FEILD FINISHED WITHOUT A CRASH!!! Its rare. Anyways... Got up at 7am, made some breakfast, put my gear in the van then headed out to pick up the peeps. Its not very often that i have friends attend my races, but when they do...i am elated. I picked up my freind Kurt, who is going to get into racing in the next month or so (i hope), then Cat, then Melinda.

On the way there, they slept while i focused on the race. We got to the industrial park, and my first thought was...."darn, they did away with the huge inflatable arch :-(" O well. Then i went and registered, found Scott and Roger, then we warmed up. It wasnt the turnout we had hoped for on our team. Jeff said he was going to show, but never did.

Anyways...the race. They shortened out race from 45 minuets to 40 minuets, i dont think any of us were complaning. It started off fast, and there were alot of strong riders out there, Marco was here from Windsor, along with the guy in the "Jack's" jersey, and about 8 (ish) Wolverine guys. Before the race started Scott said he heard Marco saying he would help the Wolverine guys. So from the start we knew the Wolverines would attack constantly. And that they did. For the first part of the race i was near the front, then i rode at the back to recover and conserve. I was surprised people were riding smarter than usual. It was smooth and crash-free.

There were several primes and i think everyone there heard the line "The next rider across the line gets a 4 pack of Full Throttle" about 90 times haha! Thanks Joe! Somewhere near the end of the race, or at least in the last quarter, Dominick Wieczorek and another rider went off the front and stayed out for a while. We finaly brought them back and the feild was all together for the finale. With two laps left, a Wolverine guy attacked, he got a gap and the peloton had a hard time chasing. We almost had him as we rounded the finaly corner, i was right where i wanted to be when the sprint started. The flyer made it to the finish and won, with Macro picking up second and i nipped some people before the line for 5th place overall. Scott had 10th, and Roger took 14th.

It was a good race, tiring, but good. I was happy with the outcome. I felt like i could have gone a little harder in the sprint and picked up 4th, maybe the podium...but i didn't. Scott was happy with my finish, and Mark Lovejoy (who did well in the masters race) said he was proud...well accualy he said "It's about time!" haha! Well like i said, im happy....and look, i got $20 for 5th place.