Race Report: 2022 Watsonville Criterium P123
Race: 2022 Watsonville Criterium P123
Date: July 9th, 2022
AVRT racers: Austin King, Cameron O'Reilly, David Domonoske, Grant Miller, John Janetzko
Top Result: Grant Miller - 2/14 Cat 3, Cameron O’Reilly - 15/46 P12
Course: The course is a .75 mile, “L” shaped loop with a slight uphill rise to the finish line. The course is very technical with five turns, two of which are greater than 90 degrees and cause you to lose momentum, especially if you take a bad line. There was a head/crosswind on the back-side of the course leading to the finishing stretch, which had a tailwind.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7443247272
Nutrition: Started with one bottle of 80g of carbs and 75mg of caffeine. Took a 75mg caffeine gel before the race.
Race Report: The Watsonville crit is a technical course that is good for breakaways and rewards being on or near the front. Our goal for this race was to stay near the front and set up a lead-out for David going into the final three laps. The start of our race was delayed by around 30 minutes due to a crash in the last lap of the women’s P123 field. Luckily, it looked like no one had serious injuries but it was scary to watch someone going into the curb at 20 mph. Unfortunately, the delayed start meant that we got reshuffled in the starting lineup and I ended up further back than I would’ve liked.
At the whistle, several of us missed the clip in and that set us up horribly for the start of the race. Only David was able to make it into the top 10-15 riders and he had to cover moves solo rather than staying protected. The rest of us struggled to make up spots as the field surged out of the technical corners. It felt like 4-5 riders were getting shelled each lap, but luckily Austin, Cam, and I were able to hold on.
As we started to settle in after the first 10 minutes, I tried to find opportunities to move up. The field was mostly single-file through turns 1-4, so the best opportunity was going up and over the finishing line into turn one. This was a very risky line as I had to try not to dive bomb the first corner and ended up killing almost all my speed into turn one and having to reaccelerate out of the turn. The good news was that I avoided a few wheel-eating potholes leading into turn one, which did some damage to others in the field. At some point in the first 20 minutes, I hit a pothole and lost my water bottle which I didn’t realize until later in the race. I slowly worked my way up into the top 20 wheels while the race was playing out ahead of me.
At the front of the race, a threatening break-away of two or three riders formed and Mike’s Bikes was chasing it back. This kept the pace high and the field strung-out, making our job of moving up even harder. About halfway into the race, I saw David on the side of the road with a flat tire. Unsure of what to do, I tried to hold my position until I could see if he was able to rejoin on the next lap. After a few laps, I saw Austin and Cam but realized that David was out of the race. It turns out David flatted, got back in the race, and then flatted again on the aforementioned potholes in turn one. At this point we had maybe five laps left and I realized that either Austin or I needed to be in a position for the sprint. I tried to get the remainder of the team together to burn a match to move up. We were at the end of the field and had about 20 riders we needed to pass.
Going over the finishing rise, I saw the field slowing and burned a match to accelerate past them. I went from maybe 30th to 5th wheel over the rise and tried to slot in behind the Project 74/Mike’s Bikes leadout. I was briefly next to Jeff Linder, which would’ve been the perfect wheel, but I wasn’t confident enough to win the battle for position behind him. Agonizingly, I slowly lost positions over the next few laps until I was around 15th wheel going into two to go. The Project 74 leadout took over the race and kept the pace high enough that there was no passing. I had plenty of energy, but was focused on saving it for the sprint in case I managed to move up any positions. In the last lap a gap opened between the top 10 and my group of 5. I saved my sprint until we turned into the finishing straight and was able to pass everyone from my group.
Unfortunately I was too far behind the top 10 and wasn’t able to close the gap. I think I could’ve had a better finish if I had been able to hold my position in the last few laps, but I was glad to finish in a race where 50% of the field didn’t even finish. Despite not finishing close to the leaders, I was able to snag a 2nd place in the category 3 field. Out of 14 cat 3 starters, only 3 finished the race.