Rocky Mounts Crit

Rocky Mounts Crit - One of the best things about upgrading to a 3 has been the later start times. No more getting up at 6am. However, yesterday the later time, meant racing in the rain for an hour. It started coming down right before our 4:30 pm start. About midday I was searching for motivation to race as it looked like it was going to rain, then I remembered what Brent told me after Lincoln. "Dugan, from now on you like racing in the rain. It's one of your advantages." With that in mind I made the trip to louisville. Brent and Marty also joined me. I also wanted to at least finish this crit, the previous 2 times I had done it, I got dropped. This course was actually my first crit ever 3 years ago. I had moved from STL, my goal was a top 20, which I thought wouldn't be to hard considering I was finishing in the top half of sport MTB races bact in STL. I held on for about 1 lap in the 4s, and remember thinking what did I get myself into. Now I can laugh, but that was my first CO racing experience. Anyway, yesterday I just tried to stay up front and wide on the corners so I didn't have to brake. Game time descion had me swith to my training wheels from my zipps, which probably saved my hiney more that once during the race. Zipps don't brake worth a shit in the rain, even with the new zero gravity brakes. I had one guy ask me with about 15 mins left if I wanted to give it a go, to which I replied, "not really". Reason being they were chasing pretty well everything down, or so I thought. He attacked on the uphill and was quickly brought back. With three laps to go Brent, Marty, and I all moved up to the front. 2 guys went on the hill, opening up a gap, then another 2 Denver Spoke guys. I jumped on their wheel, and I think Marty was on mine. I opened up a gap from those guys, not wanting to chase that early, so Marty jumped to bridge and I opened up a gap to get them off the front. Then Collins and another guy came around to start the chase towards the finish, so I just sat on their wheels. My plan was to counter as soon as they caught Marty, but he was holding strong off the front, trying to catch the Denver Spoke guys. I was just following Collins wheel, so when he started, so did I. We caught Marty about 50m before the finish. I tried to come around Collins, I got about half way and clicked for another gear, and got nothing. I had being missing a shift the last half the race, and I guess I was in the lucky gear again. Afterwards Collins said he saw me trying to sneak past him. I'll get him next time :) I was happy with my performance, until I found out 2 guys attacked 1st lap and lapped the field. How did we all miss this? Then apparently 2 more guys got off the front and held on, So what I thought was a top 5 turned out to be 8th. Marty held on for 9th as well. Looking back I should have probably closed that gap to the Denver Spoke guys, so that when Marty attacked, they wouldn't have been off the front. I never thought they would hold it to the end. Oh well.