So this morning marked the official end to my first full racing season and the 2008 racing season overall, that is unless a crit or road race creeps into the schedule for here or down in Florida over the holidays.
My teammate Greg and I did an overnight down in Jacksonville, North Carolina for the Warriors Criterium at the Coastal Plains Raceway is a .4 mile paved oval raceway – familiar territory for Greg and I, after many Tuesday nights this season out at Ace Speedway.
The Coastal Plains Raceway was a slightly larger track than its Altamahaw, NC sister, but had a very similar feel. Our arrival at the track was met with a closed gate. Several of us were raring to go at that front gate and ended up having a fair amount of time to wait around for the first race of the day.
The Cat5 field was tiny and they ended up combining the field with the juniors who had three. All and all there were only 9 or 10 of us. We all parked on the infield of the track and took our time getting ready, knowing that our start time had been pushed back from its original 9am start to 9:45.
Around 9:15 or so, we started doing leisurely laps around the oval and we warmed up and ready to go for the near 10am start. Besides Greg, there was one other familiar face – Ryan (the other Ryan) from the Raleigh Gyros, and the winner of the Cat5 race at the Wake Forest Criterium two weeks earlier.
The race was going to be a quick one – 20 laps with a headwind on the front straight. As the race began, pretty quickly, we ended up in two groups. A young unknown racer who we thought might be a contender, quickly blew his load, and Greg, the other Ryan and I were all alone out front within a few laps of the race’s start. With such a small and familiar group, we all swapped time at the front, pulling every three laps, keeping a fairly high pace.
With probably 6 laps to go, we lapped the remaining field and dropped the hammer. As luck would have it, I was on the front going into the final lap. Regardless, we all had enough energy in the final lap to pick up the pace more. We ended the race on a three-man sprint. Coming out of turn three, I had the inside line, Ryan went high and Greg ended up squeezing in at the bottom of the track.
It was damn close, but the finish ended with Ryan first, then Greg then me. It felt good to end the race with a medal, albeit bronze again, tying my best finish. It was a good way to close out the season, though I feel like I could still race more this season if the opportunity were to come. I don’t think it’s in the cards as many are already focused on cyclocross. So expect a few retrospective and season summary posts in the coming days and weeks.
Warriors Criterium, Cat5 Race, Jacksonville, NC, September 28, 2008
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