Author
Luke Seemann on May 4, 2008
Race name: Vernon Hills Grand Prix Race date: Sunday, May 4, 2008
It's always nice to have a plan. It's even sweeter when the plan is actually executed, and sweetest of all is for said plan to yield results.
Vernon Hills would be the first 3's-only race that we'd have good numbers for: me, Kirby, Shane, Johnny T and Matt Moran. We had a brief huddle in the parking lot beforehand. Matt and I were eager to get in a break. Shane and John would sit in for the sprint. Kirby volunteered to provide intra-pack shuttle services as needed.
The race was fast from the start and within a few laps I was fearful I'd get dropped in the crosswind. The legs warmed up, however, and Matt and I were I soon taking part in the many early attacks.
About 15 minutes in, two dangerous riders were off the front and a threesome was bridging. "If they bridge," I said, "it's lights out." Kirby needed no more guidance. Within a lap he'd towed me from the back to the front, and after a short rest he put in a huge jump to slingshot me forward. There's no way I could have bridged by myself. Alas, it was not lights out as I'd forecast, and the pack soon caught us.
With about 20 minutes to go, Kirby was again at the front giving it the gas. Suddenly we had gap along with Jeff of Vitaminwater-Trek. We kept it up and soon had a nice group of nine with all the major teams represented. This was it.
But this was not it. The group never organized. You'd have thought everyone would have recognized this as an express train to the top 10, but half had no interest in staying off. I'm guessing they saw that XXX and Get a Grip each had two representatives and assumed we carried the largest burden, but with only a 15-second gap, it was way to early to settle in as passengers.
I started attacking out of the group, hoping to cleave a smaller, more committed group, but it didn't work. In fact, it probably disrupted the group even more. In retrospect I should have sat in and continued to work with Kirby and Jeff. In any case, we were caught with 2 and a half laps to go.
With one and a half laps to go, I launched a flier into the tailwind. I knew that this had about a 5 percent chance of success (tailwind attacks always fail), but I also knew that the tailwind would give me a gap that at least had the illusion of being a threat. This would then string out the peloton, force other people to labor and give our boys a chance to organize.
Sure enough, I was caught just before Turn 1, but by this point Kirby, JT and Shane had made contact with one another. I reintegrated and did my best to disrupt the Vitaminwater train. (Sorry, fellas!) I didn't defend my wheels as well as I should have, but Shane got 3rd and I believe John was a top 10 as well.
It wasn't a win, but it was our best 3's result of the year, and best of all we all contributed to it. It was selfless, smart, team-oriented racing. I'm looking forward to racing like this again, and I trust our rising 4's are looking forward to it, too.