Old Towne Vande-Cross

Back down to the Quad Cities for my last race before Jingle Cross. The weather was on the chilly side, high of about 34 with winds out of the North at 15-25mph, not sure what the wind chills were, but it wasn't warm like the last few races. We got there early enough that they were still setting up the course, but since Salem was the first race to go off we wanted to get there with enough time to get him ready and warmed up. Well his race went pretty good other than the fact he had some frozen fingers, time for new gloves, but since there was only 2 Juniors, he took 1st in the 10-14 age group.

Now onto my race, another 3/4 race, and most of the fast guys were there. We started off at a pretty decent pace, not too hard, but hard enough. I tried to hang onto some wheels as long as I could, but by the end of the first lap there was a decent gap and I was in a group of 5 guys. Not knowing how far back we were place wise, I just had a goal of trying to stick with these guys since I have raced against a couple of them before. The next few laps we took turns leading until about 5 laps to go when we dropped 2 of them, so now there was 3 of us left to battle it out. We worked pretty well together for the next couple laps taking turns into the headwind sections, never thought drafting was used in cross that much. This continued for the next 3 laps, and I was feeling pretty good. 2 laps to go and I was out in front, made it cleanly through the barriers and was on my way, got through the next few turns just fine, but came up to a 90 degree right hander and my inside pedal was down and caught the ground, sending my back wheel out sideways and the guy right behind me smashed into it, damn that not good. Didn't even stop for a damage inspection, don't even think either of us put a foot down, just kept going. Good thing I didn't stop because when I checked at the end of the race my wheel was pretty well out of true, damn now need to get that fixed. Final lap and they have about a 10 yard gap on me, and they were able to hold that and slightly increase it before the lap was over, oh well I did what I could.

Ended up taking 13th place in a field of 20+ riders, not sure the exact # but still a decent finish. Looking forward to a couple weeks off from racing and focus on some skills before Jingle Cross.

Old Towne Vande-Cross