Blast Off

The 2008 Hyde Park Blast presented by Darkhorse Racing-RPC Mechanical went off, in my opinion, without a hitch. Plenty of stress, sweat, blood, hunger, and work, but no hitches.

I got there with Ethan (my 7 year old) around 11am, counting on a little caffeine from Nick's promised Awakening's offering. Nick and Tank were already hard at work though, no time for coffee. The Red Bull girls came to my rescue and all was well with a quick shot of the sugar free variety please. Nose to the grindstone from then on, we worked solidly setting up the course with barricades, hay bales, and plenty of sweeping throughout. I came up for air for about 2 minutes to eat a pretzel and take 2 sips of a Smoothie King.

Next thing you know, the Cat. 5 race had begun. It went great, followed by the women. I was at the registration end of the course and realized I needed to get back to the square to help with the podium ( I offered to be a Podium Guy but remembered the Tour de France rules stipulate you must be single, oh well). As Ethan and I were running back, we were rebuked by a wall of water and hail stones and had to seek refuge on the steps of St. Mary School until it blew over. Blow over it did and we started back up with the kid's runs, bikes, and junior races with minimal interruption.

45 minutes before the Cat. 4 race was to go off, I realized that was me and figured it would be a great time to start getting ready and maybe eat a Clif bar. My warm up consisted of riding down the sidewalk from the Square to the registration area, not ideal. I got my heart rate up with a quick sprint to the Port O Let and got back in time for the pre-race instructions. We went off impressively close to on-time and I held on for dear life for 30 minutes.

I was at the back for most of the race, not the best place I know, but all I could muster considering my long day. There was the expected yo-yoing around the 180* turn at the square and I felt like I had to sprint every lap to catch up. There were about 5 laps where I had to close a 10 meter gap as riders started to lose contact with the front group. A rider had broken off the front earlier and had a pretty good gap on the field, I was debating whether to chase it down for my teammates when I noticed the pace car was back in front of our group again. I found out later he flatted, bad luck for him, good for us. The 5 laps to go sign finally came and I started to move up a few riders at a time each lap. Starting the last lap, I was near 10th wheel and as we came down Montieth, I swung wide and started the finishing straight in 8th with Matt Bell right on my wheel. I stood up to go way too early, probably 250m to go. I found myself at the front way too soon with that far to go so I started soft pedal/sprinting. I felt like 4-5 riders passed me, including Matt, so I reaccelerated, taking back a few spots to get 3rd overall. Even better, the lead out worked and Matt took the sprint, again showing he is in top form. We should both be in the 3's soon. 1st and 3rd was a great result for Darkhorse, made all the better by Matt's sweet looking podium.

Thanks to everyone who cheered, I heard people yelling my name all over the course, that was a great feeling and definitely helped!

The 3's and Pro 1-2 race also went off smoothly and we were busy tearing down the course till 11:30pm, when the final light was loaded into the back of the RPC trailer. Thanks to all who planned and helped and worked tirelessly to make it a great day, I'm sure Tank is glad it's over!