https://www.bikereg.com/new-jersey-state-criterium-championships

This looks promising, not the least of which is because: "OPEN TO OUT OF STATE RIDERS!! TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!"

This the Basking Ridge Course for the spring Pro race,  lots of turns, just over a kilometer.  Not as hilly as the Labor Day event, but more technical.

and It's this Sunday.

damn.  
Gotta get out of Memphis.  
Coming home Wednesday.  
At least the riding is better than it used to be.

Yeah, I was excited about this race too before I read the course description. I mean, no doubt the usual Jersey hammer heads will attend because it's their championships, so that will offer a certain amount of "value" in attending such a race.

The Bike Jam race in Baltimore was that. One of the hardest, physically speaking, races I did all year. But "small circuit oval racing" is not something I generally want to travel for.

Chris Thater is the NYS Champs (new/old flat course again, but actual corners) this year. It's a bit of a haul to get up there, but I'm looking forward to racing two days, 1st for a jersey and 2nd with any left over Pros from the previous day's NCC event.

@JohnMalcolmson encouraged me to write up my race experience at the NJ State crit this past weekend. Most people's assumptions about this race were right on and my experience was sort of overwhelmingly negative.  The NJ State Crit was located in an office park in Basking Ridge,NJ. I wasn't thrilled about the course but it was 15 minutes from my friend's house who was having a BBQ that day :-) The course was a .65 mile oval loop with a short punchy climb and a fast downhill but with no real turns. The pavement was not the greatest. The tough part of the course was the short but fast downhill portion.  There were lots of potholes and a huge divet in the road right in the center. When I pre-rode the course it became pretty obvious that the safest places to be were all the way to the right or all the way to the left.  However, those places were not the fastest or most advantageous places to be in terms of winning the race or maintaining good position.  The Cat 4 women
went off shortly after the Cat 1-2-3 women.  Our race was pretty fast, a few attacks went off but no one got away.  Then with about 9 minutes to go coming down the hill we all had to slam on our breaks.  There was a huge crash in the open women field.  Apparently one girl went through the divet in the road and hit wheels with 2 other girls causing a total of 4 to go down.  2 walked away, 2 carried away on stretchers, apparently the latter two girls both had broken collar bones.  It was pretty bad.  I heard one girl scream and it was pretty horrible.  At that point, the racing officials said they were going to cancel both races.  The majority of the Cat 1-2-3's were pretty spooked and didn't want to finish and asked if they would move the state championship to the Freedom Tour on the 26th.  The answer was a firm no.  They told the Cat 4 women that we could either all get DNF's or do a four lap race. It seemed pretty unfair for us to all get DNF's when we
only had less than 10 minutes to go.  After standing around for over an hour they cleared the crash and we did a four lap race.  It was very hard for me to get started again due to both an hour of inactivity and my mental state.  Watching the aftermath of a crash like that is pretty tough.  Overall, not a great day.  I hadn't raced in over a month so I was looking forward to getting back out there, but its definetly tough to witness anyone who enjoys the sport and put so much work into it get hurt.  Total bummer of a day :-(  Hopefully the next race will be better and those girls will heal up quickly.  

Thanks for reporting on your race experience. Reading this reminds me how lucky we are to have a fair number of at least good quality races available to us throughout the season.

Unfortunately, this one sounded rough. In an ideal world, the officials responsible for the race would check out the course before hand and make some hard decisions. I've raced on plenty of crap pavemented circuits, but this one sounded beyond terrible. An official has the right, the RESPONSIBILITY to say, "No racing today, on this course." if the roads are not safe for racing.

Having had just a smidge of responsibility when helping out with the Supercross races, I can tell you that race promotion is undeniably hard and difficult and thankless. And I don't even do that much in the grand scheme of things. And yet, I'm incredibly stressed and tired every year as Supercross approaches. Anyway, I guess my thinking is that, as a promoter, if you don't think you can put on a good race on a good course, then you should just not. If you only have a crap circuit with crap pavement? Then don't do it. JUST DON'T.

Okay, mini-rant aside, let me say, that I'm super pleased and pumped that Julie Jones has been helping fly the KCC flag at so many races this year! Thanks Julie for getting out there and telling us about your adventures. I wouldn't be surprised if the solid simmer of 2015 turns into a full rolling boil of racing on the women's side in 2016 and beyond!