Photo courtesy of Bruce Burke
Mens CAT 3: by Sage Freeman
This was a fun race! I typically do not like crits with the high crash risk factor but this course is wide open with only one “sharp” corner. The race began at a steady tempo pace with a few early break attempts. Kurt Haas, Mike Stockton and myself were there to represent Capitol Velo. Ironclad, Life Cycle and Therapeutic Assoc. also had 3 riders per team. 27 riders total for this race.Jen Akeroyd raced with the Mens CAT 3 and showed us all how strong she is, riding in the top 5 almost the entire race. With about 15 laps to go, a break formed with about 4 guys. They seemed to put some distance on the field getting about half a lap at the most. Kurt, Mike and myself all made attempts to bridge but with no success. Therapeutic had a man in the break and another marking all the bridge attempts. TJ on Therapeutic raced brilliantly keeping all the attempts at bay. One guy in the 4 man break crashed on a corner and another popped off. I thought we might bring it back until we got down to the final laps. It became a field sprint for third place. Kurt went to the front with half a lap pinning it into the final corner to the finish. Stockton managed to sprint for 7th and I pulled 9th. Fast and fun!!
Juniors Race: by Jennie & Matt Jones
My daughter Jennie raced the Icebreaker and it was her second race. For her first race at the Capitol Cup she went out really hard and tried to keep up with the older junior racers so she was in the lead in her division for the first several laps, but she was slowly reeled in as she ran out of gas by the time she finished. This week she had a differentt strategy; stay with her group and pace herself slower and then kick it up in the last several laps. We had a swim party over in Springfield and we got to the event just before the race so she was a bit tired from that to start with. She certainly was pacing herself, so much so that she was falling back so I of course was yelling commands from the side like “Go harder!”, “Shift into a bigger gear!” (sideline parents can be such jerks.) She picked it up a bit but I could tell she was hurting. She later told me her quads had a pretty good burn going! She caught up to her team mates (which were doing a great pace line by the way!) near the last lap going around the first corner but by the time they came back into view at the last corner she was way behind again. She didn’t say anything, but I noticed she had a bit of road rash on her knee. She said “oh, yeah, I crashed just before the last corner.” She said she went over a square thingy (Metal valve cover in the road or??) and her rear tire wiped out. No tears, or even much worry about it. She is one tough girl! She says she is having fun racing which I of course love to hear!
