Stage 6- Humbolt Park

Fuck.

Nice day, 80, not much wind, 35 miles-40 laps. A very cool course around a park with a sharp turn into a little hill every lap. It's usually a tough race. The hill takes it's toll after a while and the "pure sprinters" seem to have trouble with it. AP was joining us and we were thinking today would be a good day. We were wrong.

It went from the gun. I think some guys were so excited to be racing crits again that they just couldn't contain themselves. It was hard, guys were coming off on the 3rd lap. One thing, I noticed Dewey warming up, but when we were at the start line he wasn't around (as I pretty much always start at the back because they don't pull that stupid first lap prime shit here.... because it's stupid, amateurish, unsafe, and retarded.... but I won't get into that again). A little bit later I noticed he was attacking off the front..... I guess I just missed him at the start.

Anyway to make a horrible, boring, long story, just a horrible short story, Dewey got away with 4 other guys after about 15 laps or so. Being in the overall position he was, Hareland chased for a few laps and we got pretty close. Another guy bridged across right as the pressure came off and that was the back breaker. They were gone.

We chased for the next 8-10 laps but they were actually picking up time as at that point there weren't many people interested in chasing. Finally we just reserved ourselves to contesting the field sprint.

There were a few small attacks out of the field, but nothing major and I think we just fell asleep a little and let a little group of 3 squirt off with about 5 to go. We chased a little, but not much. Now we were sprinting for 10th. Anyway, Hareland ended up a very disappointing 13th, I was 16th.

We sucked today. This was a race that if we played our cards right, we could have done much better, but we completely fucked the dog and probably thoughts of the overall are fading. Back to the Dewey thing. I didn't miss him at the start, he wasn't there. Unfortunately he missed the start.... but even more unfortunately he raced anyway although he was 2 laps down. He ended up as the last finisher. Hmmmm.

3 stages left and Hareland is in 3rd. Probably 15 points at least from 1st (20 points per win) and maybe 10 or so out of 2nd. There's a little bunching of 3rd, 4th, and 5th, only a few points apart. We're going to have our hands full the next couple days. Maybe with a little luck and a little better race management, we'll still be able to get this thing done after all. I mean, we had a little bad luck during stage 2, those things can happen.

Tomorrow is a fucking 2 hour drive up to Green Lake. It's a new course, I don't know anything about it, but I heard it also has a hill, and by the looks of it it's a twisty 6 corner thing. Could be fun. Wish us luck.

For those of you scoring at home; yes, our streak of 3rd places ended today. Hareland was 3rd Monday and Tuesday and I was 3rd yesterday. However what's even weirder, our streak of 13ths hasn't ended. I was 13th on Monday and Tuesday and then Hareland was 13th Wednesday and Today. Weird huh?

Good to have AP here! We'll get Muyres tomorrow. Fuck you Green Lake!