Race Report: 2024 Dash for Cash Crit - Men’s 2/3
Race: 2024 Dash for Cash Crit - Men’s 2/3
Date: June 1, 2024
AVRT racers: Grant Miller, Andrea Cloarec, Drew Mathews, Jon Wells
Top Result: Jon Wells, 7th of 65
Course: 0.8 mile loop through an office park in Pleasanton. The rectangle course manages to have just 3 corners (barely) with the last one a gentle sweeping bend. Theres no significant vertical so a headwind down the bottom straight into the final corner was the only course feature of note.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11550693271
Nutrition: a pre race Redbull and 60g flow bottle during the race
Race Recap:
Gameplan coming into the race was for the boys to get some upgrade points. Myself, Grant, and Andrea were all licking our chops for a chance to score points without the cat 1s around. There were a few big teams in Mikes and Dolce but teamwork in cat ⅔ races can sometimes be suspect. We wanted to be sure we were present in any moves that contained the big teams since composition is really important for a break to work on this sort of course with no features. I was gonna be our guy if it came down for a sprint and we were planning for a super late lead out on the headwind side of the course given our small team size and the tough wind.
We were very well represented in all of the moves. Grant and Andrea spent a lot of the race off the front but nothing ever stuck. One group of 4 (including Grant) probably had the longest tenure off the front but their gap never grew past 15 seconds.
The race came down to a very hectic last couple laps. The race was not particularly fast and the course was very wide so lots of guys thought they still had a chance which makes for very sketchy conditions (foreshadowing? Keep reading to find out!). Mikes tried to have their guys lead it out at the front but the pace was really never high enough so there was a ton of swarming in the last few laps. We were all a bit separated with 2 laps to go so I decided to just surf wheels at the front by myself and if I found a teammate for the last lap, great. Otherwise, I’d be in a good spot to go solo.
Coming around the last lap, I committed to riding the inside of the lap because I wanted the inside line for the last corner and be on the downwind side for the final sprint. Unfortunately everyone had the same idea so it did get pretty physical on the inside. I found myself about 4rd wheel on the inside line coming up to the last corner, just when another train of riders tried to go even further inside than we already were. There wasn’t enough room for everyone and there ended up being a huge crash in the last corner. I had to grab some brake but managed to stay up. Only 4 guys were ahead of the crash and got a clean sprint out of the last corner which left everyone who stayed on their bikes sprinting from a near stop after the crash and I was able to still manage a 7th place on the day. Very happy to not hit the pavement and stoked to grab a few more upgrade points!
-Jon