Barber Motorsports Circuit Race Report

Ride To Live Race Report

With a mediocre (aka, terrible) weekend in Lees McRae, and Conference Championships coming up this weekend, I wanted to get some race in my legs and tune myself with a comparable field. Fortunately the Ride to Live circuit race was going on, and it was a Pro/1/2/3 field, exactly how the Collegiate race would be run, and with a bigger field.

There were of course a few major differences. The road was a circuit, and it was closed. It was only an hour long (if even that), and while the P/1/2/3 USAC racers were super fast, the collegiate A field seems a bit faster. Regardless, here’s how it played out.

There were definitely some marked men. Tyler Stanfield (Inferno), all of the Team Type 1 guys, the Hincapie guys, Stuart Lamp, and pretty much any member of the local Birmingham teams (Tria, Booko, Tristar/Warp9) were not allowed to get more than a few seconds off the front. In fact, the one time Ty tried to make a break, there were many yells of “Don’t let that go! Grab that wheel!”. A few times a small break would get off the front, and the pack would just let them hang before someone got interested and led the chase.

I found myself riding fairly easily most of the race. A few times the pace would pick up and the field would string out almost single file, but once the catch was made it would accordion back into one bike pack. There was an attack with 2 to go that resulted in a break of about 10 off the front. About 12-20 seconds up the road, not too far. As we approached the end of the 8th lap, no one was chasing up to the group, and considering I had been sitting mid pack most of the race, I figured if I went after the pack no one would go. We hit the hill near the finish and I used it as a launch pad, seemingly effortlessly launching off the front and closing the gap between the peloton and the leaders by half almost instantly. Unfortunately I didn’t make the catch before the front stretch, which at the time was into the wind. (the wind was swirling and inconsistent). I started to die in no mans land. A chase group had formed behind me, composed of brian toone (Tria), Logan Haskew (VeloCity ProCycle) and Stuart Lamp. (Tria) Unfortunately I thought it was the pack chasing and sat up as they made the catch. I missed Stuart’s wheel and missed the chase. Not 10 seconds later the field caught me going into the tight corners. I hung on through the corners but the legs were burnt. When we hit the slight uphill in the first half of the course, I lost contact with the field. With one lap to go, the field wasn’t going to slow. The race was over. I sat up and took an easy spin to the line.

The pace averaged just over 26mph, and to be honest, it never felt nearly as hard as it should have. The attack I made was a classic rookie mistake, one I never should make. However, I feel better having made a move than sitting in the whole time, which would have been much easier. On the plus side, it was nice to finally ride with all the Alabama riders instead of all the Collegiate teams. Nice change of scenery, and while the racing was more even and less aggressive, the riders were MUCH more predictable, stable and had better handling skills. Only once did I almost see pavement because of another rider, and hopefully I didn’t almost take anyone out either. Everyone stayed rubber side down, and who could have asked for a better place to race!