I will be staying with friends right near the course, so I'm going up Friday night. I can't offer housing. But there is housing stock in the area for a share if anyone else wants to go.

OK,

Race report time. My legs felt heavy as I went to do openers on Saturday, but I chalked that up to an enormous amount of BBQ for lunch and 90+ degree heat. I climbed a bit and called it a day after 1.25 hours that included checking out Lime Rock itself as there were cars having a track day.

The Lime Rock course is below. The arrows indicate the car direction, we went the other way, so that the hill is about a 12% kicker on the very top of the pic (what would lead into the home straight for the cars). Then the track drops back down, sweeps left and switches back and forth while dropping elevation, so you keep going fast.

There was wind straight down our finishing stretch. Ugh. 21 starters. Time to go. Its hot.

First couple of laps, nobody does anything as I move around on the downhill that sweeps left. There are three Horst Engineering guys, two Brauers and various singletons, myself included. On lap 4, we went up the hill and lo and behold, a Brauer, a Horst and another guy had detached themselves from the front. An Arc-and-Ciel guy was there soon too. So, I shot out of the sweeping left after the downhill and bridged across relatively comfortably and sat on for the homestretch into the wind. Next lap, a big Bethel Cyclign guy made it across. We rode pretty hard with teh Bethel, myself and the Horst guy doing better turns. But we quickly lost sight of the pack.

The sky turned dark. The wind whipped up and we all almost got blown off the track trying to turn onto the homestretch one lap. But we didn't go down. So, I was beginning to wonder how this would play out. With 6 sprinting, we had plenty of room to go for it into the headwind finish, so I wasn't worried too much about that. 

THEN THE RAIN CAME. BOOM. It got wet quickly and the super warm water sprayed us in the face, and everywhere else. Surprisingly, the track didn't get slippery, so we were safe there.

Three to go, heading up the hill, the Horst guy goes for it and keeps the pressure on over the top (where people usually eased up). I launched across hoping that this was it. The Bethel guy made it too. Perfect I thought, only two to deal with at the finish (redeem myself for Friday?). We only dislodged the Brauer guy and we were back together.

2 to go up the hill, the Ar-en-Ciel guy goes. Nobody reacts. He gets a small gap and hangs out there. As we get the bell, I bring the gap down to a couple of seconds as I plow through the headwind., But I wasn't going to kill it just to have to climb the hill and gets shelled as others do so, so I et out of the way to let the other 3 guys finish it off. 

Didn't happen. The Horst guy tried, I managed to tail gun it and launch out of the last corner 925w for the 30seconds. I didn't catch the Arc guy (good for him, he made the right move and nobody wanted to tow the sprinters, aka, guys who bridged up to the line) but came close and easily held off the Bethel guy for 2nd. Legs felt great and I could have raced the 1-2, but the rain, hail, lightning and wind were just too much I think for a 10 man field.

Luka was there and was over the moon when I came around to the viewing area. That was cool. Plus he liked looking at the check.

Great venue, great fun race. We have to get more guys up here next year.

Holy shit Eric, judging from that pic you should have had seconds of BBQ.