Waterford #2

This was our first foray into the racing at the Waterford Raceway. This is a race course for cars but it serves us well as bike racing venue.

James went first and raced like a banshee in the C-racing. He was in the hunt as they headed for the sprint. Unfortunately he was crashed out a couple of hundred meters from the finish. When I realized he didn't make it to the finish I scanned the course for him found him in the grass. When we got to him he was sitting up struggling to breath. I made him lay back down to recover from the trauma. After a few more minutes he was able to breath easily again and get up. Zach brought in the camera and interviewed him. I think he has that on his blog if you haven't checked it out yet.

My race was an hour and thirty minutes plus 2 laps. Danny Klein flew off the front from the whistle. I couldn't believe it. We had a ton of racing and we were already flying. I rung up 330 watts for the first five minutes. That is zone 5 for me meaning I had about 6-7 minutes before things were going to start blowing up. Thankfully, my power requirement dropped down to 280 watts for the next five minutes which was manageable. Joe told me to hang onto Ben Renkema which sounded like a good idea but for how long? Look, this was a long race and there were a lot of turns and acts of aggression but in the end, none of the breaks were successful and it all came down to a field sprint. My legs felt great and I had a decent sprint left. Vince Roberge led me up to the front and I launched from several riders back. I didn't have any chance against the class of the field but I moved up some and finished in eighth place. Our own John Rigdon took 7th.

Overall, it took 281 watts of normative power and I averaged 161 beats per minute for one hour and thirty seven minutes. Phew! It hurt but I finished feeling fairly strong. I wish I had more time to write about the race but I just ran out of time. I hope to get some video up of the finish tomorrow.