Wente Road Race 09 from Doug

Hi all, I just wanted to give a short race report and it will be short because my race was cut short. I felt great going into this race. I had trained doing hill repeats and Ifelt great on the team ride the week before. I got new shifters, a 53/39chainring set (swapped for a 52/42) and a new wheel set. I wanted a good result. Well I think I jinxed myself. I road up to the finish line with Mark, Jason and a few other guys for the warm up and I didn¹t think that the hill was terribly bad compared to my training rides. The Cat 5 had a neutral start to the finish line and I was riding up front of the pack feeling great. We crossed the finish line and the race started. I stayed at the front leading the pack up the rest of the first climb. Once we hit the headwinds on the descent I wanted to conserve some energy so I floated back into about 8th place. I was riding behind a big guy catching a good draft. As wewere coming down the first descent, taking the sweeping right hand turn pastthe hay bails and coming into the sharp left hand corner my race ended. As Iwas sitting behind this big guy and the pack was bunching up. I left tolittle room between myself and the bike in front of me. He started driftingto the right as his momentum was going to take him off the road. I was toclose and his rear wheel hit my front and I went down. I got up pretty quickly but the moto stopped and a couple of guys were checking me out. I had a good dent in my helmet (great chance to get a new helmet that matches the DBC kit), a finger was bleeding pretty good and road rash in a few goodplaces on my body. My new shifters are a little beat up but working and the new wheels are bomber (Williams system 30s). I decided to take the guysadvice to go see the first aid. I checked out fine and thought about finishing the ride but as I wanted a good placing I decided to just call ita day and gear up for Davis DC and Spring Hill RR (if they ever open upregistration). See you all out on the road.

Doug

P.S. One last point I didn't include. Thanks to Joaquin for offering to hold up and get me back into the race. Also it was great having friends up in thefeed zone to wait with while my ride finished up his race. Thanks for themaking sure I was taken care of. It is great being part of DBC ... Doug