Snowball Crit I

Posted by Dan on 23. February 2009 06:08

The 2009 season kicked off with a miserable excuse for a day. I went out to get the paper this morning and it was 47 degrees and mostly cloudy. The forecast was calling for 49 degrees with a 28% chance of rain. As I sat eating my breakfast, the skies opened up and all hope for a relatively warm, dry day of racing was lost.

Wick and I met Steve and Tim at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex at 10:30 to help VBV with setup, track sweeping and traffic control. The 20 mph winds and rain washed a half dozen condoms off the track which was very fortunate as none of us were qualified to handle such hazmat. The crowd began arriving and it was clear that there was no chance the race would be called. We were going to get cold(er) and wet(ter).

The C race was composed of roughly 50 Cat 5s, Women (3) and Juniors (2) and was to last 21 laps. I believe it rained throughout the entire race and the winds were about 15 mph blowing straight down the finishing stretch. Tim finished somewhere around 15th. Steve's place wasn't recorded.

The B race was more of the same with slightly less rain. A small group took off at the start. For whatever reason, I thought it'd be a good idea to chase them down. Clearly that was an early season mistake. I failed in catching them and slipped to the back of the main field. On lap number two I realized I was still in my small chain ring which explains a lot. I shifted to the big ring and was promptly dropped. Shortly after that Wick let go and drifted aft to help pull me back to the pack (or so he'd like me to believe). 20 minutes later the pack caught me. Not sure where Wick was. Mike suffered the same fate. All in all, it wasn't pretty. Not a single one of us finished on the lead lap. At least we were cold and wet.

The A race was a race. Very interesting in a 'you had to be there' kinda way.

The next race is on March 8. With a bit of luck, most of the guys that were out there today will catch the flu.

Lots of pictures on Flickr courtesy of my wife, Lydia.