Feb 3, 11:28 AM by Steve | Mothballs Race Report

I came into Mothballs with two goals: Win a prime, and a top 10 finish. The first prime I went after was for $25 but I started too far back and wasn’t even close. For the wine, one guy attacked on the backside, but I was not able to counter until after the final corner, and was not quite able to close his considerable lead. That formed a sizeable gap on the field coming into the first corner, but neither of us wanted to try to use it to make a break stick with more than 5 laps to go, much to the disappointment of another guy that had just bridged up to us. He spent that whole lap dangling ahead of us, staring back to get us to make a move with him. I considered it but knew that it would destroy me, so I backed off and got swallowed back into the pack. For the rest of the race, I stayed near the front to help Tom (won the 4s race last year) if needed, but I ended up stuck again and was not able to do anything when he tried to counter an attack. When I was finally able to get clear I shot up the inside and recovered many places but it was only good for 14th. After the race, someone came up to me and said: “I quickly realized that you guys had a plan”.

My teammate Chester did the last of his 10 cat 5s races, hammering the field with the father-and-son-cyclocross Langins, putting the hurt on the pack and keeping the pace high all race, but in the end they were all swarmed at the finish. By some stroke of luck, he convinced the official to upgrade him, despite having already told Langin Jr. that he wouldn’t give race-day upgrades. So newly upgraded, he jumped into the 4s race with me and Tom. He took a much more conservative approach than the 5s race, except for a few attacks.

Langin Jr., leading out Sr. and Chester in the 5s race:

This race has shown me that I have a much better sprint than I thought, gaining a lot of ground on both primes and the finish, and I will do much better once I get the tactics and positioning sorted out. And bike throwing.

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