Oct 05, 2015 at 04:47 AM
On on Monday, he rests. With another year of Divine Providence in the books, New England Holy Week 2015 is over.
My day was off to a pretty good start. While I didn't spy US National Champ Katie Compton in the breakfast room of our slightly run down LaQuinta Inn today, I did wake to my son serenading us all a new song he learned at school (it was pretty damn adorable), eat waffles, oatmeal, OJ and get to the race course 3 hours early. FWIW, the premium parking was worth the extra $15 or whatever.
(No Myles, you cannot charge for Premium Parking spots at Supercross, because we do not have a parking problem. Gloucester, for example could probably charge $50 for premium parking and get away with it.)
Another good course and the brisk winds and sunny morning skies ensured the course was perfectly fast and tacky. Happy to have brought my Grifo Tubulars out to play. Just goes to show you can only trust the weather forecasts so far.
12th row call-up. Patrick was one row behind me, Jules another row (or two?) behind him. Solid start, made some moves, but the prologue loop was fraught with log-jams. I lost track of how many times I had to put a foot down to help avoid crashing into dudes. Around corners, up hills, through single-track. It was almost comical. Except not. I was bleeding time that would never be regained.
Once I was racing at full speed, I noticed that the perfectly tacky corners that I was railing in pre-ride, were disintegrating into dust. Still, I managed to hold my own pretty well. Took some good lines, had good power/speed caught some groups, passed some groups. But I also flubbed some corners good too.
In the last two laps I was basically in a battle with Tyler Nothstein. We're trading spots with two to go. With one to go, I unleash my inner beast, catch and drop him on the homestretch pavement. My flying bunny hop over the curb into the grass to the single track is a smidge more confident/better than his and I'm able to open the gap. Into the single track, I know I can get out of sight. And while I won't be "out of mind," I'll definitely have the advantage going into the last 2/3 of the lap where I believe I can hold my own.
Hit the run-up, huff up the hill put my bike down and chuh-chink. Chain drop. FUCK! Tyler and about 4 other dudes go by. Back on, I carve down the hill, hit this little rutted out dippsy-doodle that was tricky. I got it right every lap, except this one. Of course. Fuck me. Into the snow fence, more guys pass.
Then I'm chasing. I catch some, but not all. In the end, 63 out of 117 starters it seems. Nothstein finished 54th. So you know, there's that. Plus, the lap times. Here's an interesting thing. So take away my terribly slow first lap because of opening lap tom-foolery, and look at the remaining laps, and I see that I'm basically turning the same lap times as the guys who finished in the 40s. And it looks like 10th place to 40th, those guys are running, on average, about 7 to 20 seconds per lap faster.
But that's not how cross works. Still, it's interesting to think about what is theoretically possible.
Next up, Charm City! Then HPCX where I expect to see a few more KCC crossers come out to play, because the venue is quite close to NYC. Also, fun course if you like to go up and down hills a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZcpPHmj5zs
