Vacaville Grand Prix

Race Report: Vacaville Grand Prix

Date: 8/16/09

Teammates: Katheryn Curi Mattis (3^rd), Karen Brems (4^th)

I love this crit course! It is technical, has a hill, is interesting and has all sorts of environmental surprises! We had a surprise star appearance by Kim Anderson (Columbia High Road). I kicked the race off with fulfilling my season’s worth of race flats in a matter of minutes. I had rolled the course along the sidewalk while the race before us was still running and ran through some goat heads. I pulled up the start, looked down and saw two in my front tire and at least four in my rear. Luckily, Mark was at the start and was kind enough to lend me his front wheel while Dan (the great coach he is) ran to the car to grab my rear Zipp. I won’t lie. I panicked a bit. But then it was all taken care of so professionally that I started the race without skipping a beat. We hammered the first lap and there were several attacks. When everyone was clearly tired and the field slowed into the head wind section after the hill I decided to jump and see if I could get a break going. My thought was that Kim, being a world-class time racer, would attack off the front at one point and that if I could get a break going first she would at least have to work to chase us before possibly blowing past us. Unfortunately none of the riders I was hoping would come with me did. I was out there for about 2.5 laps which pretty much wasted my legs. When we got caught Kim launched and Katheryn followed. She spent the rest of the race chasing Kim with a Colavita rider. While they never caught Kim she secured herself a third place finish. Karen and I communicated (rather late, my fault) to set me up for the sprint. While the lead out was going great (we had gapped the field heading into the final corner) I was toasted by the time we were within 400 meters of the finish. Karen gapped me and the rest of the field so I yelled for her to keep up and go for 4^th, which left me leading out the rest of the field. I stood to sprint but had not legs so I rode it in for about 10^th place. An exciting field for a small-town local race!