Proctor Crit - "Doc, I can't feel my legs!"

Proctor Crit - State Champs

The title sums up my races pretty well. Here goes:

We went round in circles and XXX won.

With only a short drive and plenty of time for sleep I had no excuses for messing up this one, but I contrived to do so anyway. 40 or so of us lined up for the masters 4/5 race. I got an ok'ish 15 minute warm up in. The pace was hectic for the first couple of laps with a fierce wind swirling between the buildings. Super 8 turn course, with wide streets, good road conditions and enough elevation changes to take a bit of the zip out of the sprinters legs. I suffered from the start, lost contact into the headwind on lap 2, legs as dead as they’ve ever been. Just no response whatsoever.

Rolled around with a Team Mack guy for a while, contemplated just bagging it but that wouldn’t be a Sean thing to do. Eventually I warmed up somewhat and I was able to put out some steady state power. Caught a group of 3 stragglers containing a teammate and we two took off - trading turns. At the waist of the figure 8 we could see the main field coming through just over half a lap ahead, they had bunched up, it was clear that they were now settling for the sprint- that meant that the only question now was by how many lengths Mike of XXX would win.

We worked away and actually made up a little bit of time on the field, they had definitely slowed. I was taking all the pulls on the back straight into the wind, teeth gripping the bars to make myself ultra aero – catching and dropping a few more stragglers. With two laps to go I caught sight of a group of 5 ahead and buried myself to catch them. Flew straight past them and a couple jumped on my wheel. I knew that the pace would be picking up and didn’t want to get caught, so I just pulled as hard as I could and went eyeballs out up the finishing straight to avoid the approaching field sprint. I could hear the commentary of the finish as I went around turns 1 and 2, sure enough Mike won the sprint easily, but only by a couple of lengths. I guess I had dropped the others in the last effort so I rolled around easy and finished the race without being lapped and having caught everyone who got dropped. Not much to take comfort from but
I’m glad I never gave up. The steady state engine is fine but the top end comes and goes – I guess I overdid it on some hill repeats two days beforehand. I'll have to be careful about that in the future.

I have to say that the idea of a cat 4 state champion is a bit weird, by definition it only serves to identify those who should already have upgraded. Both the first and second guys in the race would be able to hang with the cat 2s no problem. Maybe they should run it in March so those who target it can race and upgrade, should save them the trouble of micromanaging upgrade points for most of the Summer.

Then it was a three hour shift in sun and wind as a corner marshall followed by a spell looking after the payout table after a racer and his manager (from my favourite blue and white team) badgered the payout guy so much (there was a mixup over results) that he walked away and went home. They then tried the same trick on the club treasurer – to the point that I had to intervene and ask them to step away. They got their payout eventually when we received the correct results but only managed to reinforce their already classless reputation in Illinois cycling – and I’m not the only one who thinks this.

After five hours volunteering, I lined up for the Cat 4 race but feeling dizzy and dehydrated I dropped out on lap 1. Not finishing is weak, but racing when you’re a danger to others and yourself is weaker.

The real story of this race is the superb, flawless organization. Registration was smooth. Course was wonderful, atmospheric - and safe. Little things like the plentiful water supply for all, and the different colour numbers to distinguish those in different age brackets but racing together demonstrated what makes a good race great. Other promoters please note.

The swirling blustery wind made racing difficult, and wasn’t friendly to breakaways but there were some good races. In Cat 3, the Zinkotron went off the front for about 30 minutes, but the pace was so fast that his teammates just couldn’t get to the front to block. He was caught with 5 laps to go and then Burnham racing executed as perfect an end of race strategy as one is likely to see and went 1-2 for their efforts.

I sat down to watch the normal Cat 4 procession and a race actually broke out. There were lots of attacks, PowerBar Ben did his thing about half a dozen times, he'd get chased down by XXX and then XXX would send guys off the front and block. Great to see effective teamwork finally in action. With 5 laps to go XXX's Liam, probably with the largest 10 minute engine in the Cat 4s, went off and nobody chased. XXX blocked and Liam stayed away and won by 20 –30 seconds. Mike of XXX won the field sprint by a facile margin and Joel of Bike Heaven exploded off the front to take third – that guy has the purest natural acceleration I’ve seen in a long time, he was not ignored when they were doling out the cycling genes to the Friedman family. Turned out to be the best race of the day - congrats to XXX for bringing the numbers, executing a plan and reaping their deserved rewards by going 1-2.

It was a super event that sets the Gold Standard on how to organize a race. It was a privilege just to be part of it. Next time I’ll try to bring my legs along.