Sept 12th, 2010

DA solos the last lap after taking off on the hill and comes in over a minute ahead of the field! Warren and Harry take advantage of a tired chasing field and sprint to 2nd and 3rd.

Ben Cornish Takes 3rd in the 4a race.

In the 5s Rob B is 3rd, Adam is 7th

David's winning race report:

We lined up with a threat of rain and the first fall chill in the air.
I usually don’t have a great reaction to racing in the heat, so I was
happy that it was a little cooler. And starting at noon meant the
first race in a long time that I would be fully awake for.

Lap number one was pretty fast and hard. We hit Tioratti climb and a
couple of strong climbers hit the front with a vengeance. I slotted
in 4th or 5th wheel and kept pace to see how things were going to play
out. As we got about 2/3rds up, those guys started to fade; I put in
some efforts at the front to make it harder. I knew from last year
that the field could easily settle in and wait for the sprint w/out
making the race too selective. This was not a good thing for me as I
am not a sprinter.

The back half after Tioratti circle is essentially the TT course. We
hit that and were strung out single file with NYVC making pace for a
lot of it. When we came through the finish for the first lap, the 4A
field, which had started 4 minutes in front of us, was in sight. I
decided to keep the pace high and pass them so we wouldn’t get bunched
up w/them in the big descent or the climb.

Once clear of them we hit the big downhill and climb for the second
time. David Trumpf from FGX and a TEANY guy were making a pretty hard
pace up the hill so I helped them to keep it hard. Johny B and the
NYVC guys again made pace on the back half, with Bryan taking monster
pulls on the uphill after the second circle, which was clearly putting
the hurt on.

Going into the third lap, just before the fast downhill, the 4As
caught back, and we were neutralized for over 5 minutes to give them
enough time to get up the rode so that we would not run into them
again. This gave a lot of people a chance to catch back on, but we
also got a chance to drink and eat and pee, which I took full
advantage of.

We kept the pace high through the third time up the hill, and as we
were coming into the back half the field noticeably slowed. We didn't
want keep killing ourselves through here, but also we didn't want to
let the race stagnate. I talked to Art Roulac from Houlihan -- he is a
good climber but hadn’t been at the front -- to see if he wanted to go
on a move the final lap. He said he did, and I also asked David T
from FGX, who said he would try.

A light rain had been falling for the final 3 laps. The downhill into
the hairpin was over 45 mph and scary as hell. We talked to guys
about taking it easy on the downhill and reminded everyone that no one
was going to win the race here. To most everyone’s credit there
wasn’t much surging here, and with the distinct smell of burning break
pads in the air, everyone stayed upright through the hairpin.

On the final lap I didn’t have great position coming out of the
hairpin so once through the turn I put in a big effort to get to the
very front for the last time up the hill. David Trumpf was there and
putting in a super strong effort. I was hurting so I recovered on his
wheel for a minute and then came up beside him and nodded my head to
let him know I was going to go. When I went off the front I didn’t
look back for about 30 seconds. When I did, there was no David
Trumpf, Art Roulac or anyone else. I really did not like the idea of
going it alone. I thought for a moment about giving up and going back
to the pack, but then decided that I had nothing to lose. If I got
caught I would try to recover and give it everything on the uphill
finish.

As I continued to climb I would look back to try to get a sense of
what was happening. The field was out of sight, but that wasn’t much
of a consolation. The road was very twisty and I didn’t know if they
were 5 seconds behind or 20. The only thing to do was give it
everything. I kept passing stragglers from other fields. I would
learn from Warren later that back in the field they thought they were
catching me, only to find out they had reeled in one of these
stragglers.

Once I got over the top I was on the TT course that I know pretty well
from back in June. The thought crossed my mind that I had some
unfinished business here. I got super low, rested my hands over the
front of the bars and got into full TT mode. The mind plays funny
tricks on you at this point…and I vacillated by the minute between an
endorphin rush so strong that I felt this might be the happiest moment
of my life to an equally strong desire to pull off to the side of the
road and just end the pain.

The pace car was up front with his hazard lights blinking and honking
at the stragglers to move right as we passed. It took 27 minutes to
get from the bottom of Tioratti to the finish after the feed zone. I
was never told the gap, so for that entire time I went all out, pretty
sure that I would be caught any second. In the end the gap was
one-minute and four seconds. I crossed the line and started riding
back to the finish just in time to see Warren and Harry come over the
line 2nd and 3rd.

Huge shout out to the team for keeping the pace fast and not letting
it become a negative race. Thanks everyone for a great season, it’s
been pretty awesome racing with you all.