Race Report: 2024 Wilmington Grand Prix - Men’s 2/3

Race: 2024 Wilmington Grand Prix - Men’s 2/3

Date: May 18, 2024

AVRT racers: Jon Wells

Top Result: Jon Wells, 5th of 62

Course: 0.8 mile rectangle in downtown Wilmington, DE. The home straight is a slight uphill and then turns downhill into corner 1 which is quickly followed by corner 2. The back stretch is slightly downhill until right before corner 3 when the road quickly drops down, right into the tightest corner on the course. The road also goes into a short, slightly steeper section of uphill between corners 3 and 4.

Nutrition: a pre race Redbull and 60g flow bottle during the race

Race Recap:

This crit is a fairly technical course, particularly with the tricky downhill corner 3 into the uphill. It very physical in a normal year, with usually less than half the field finishing on the lead lap. This year had the added addition of rain. It had rained lightly all morning and throughout the race, making the downtown course with lots of road paint markings quite slippery.

My plan was to race at the front all day with the technical nature of the course combined with the rain. Additionally, I don’t know who the strong individuals and teams are since I don’t race on the east coast regularly. Considering this, I didn’t plan to instigate many moves coming into the race, but wanted to be on top of anything that felt dangerous. This race usually does not come down to a field sprint, so I had to be alert to moves going.

I managed to line up on the front row so I don’t think I was ever actually outside of the first 15 wheels all race. The first half of the race I just patrolled the front, including following a few moves which never stuck more than a lap or so. Many laps coming out of corner 3 and 4 there would be gaps opening from people cornering slowly that would often be the start of a move. Many of these “moves” were incidental gaps that folks didn’t want to push on with. I would often pedal a few seconds longer on the backside to slot further up coming into corner 3 so the acceleration out would be easier to manage.

By around halfway, it was clear who the 5 strongest guys in the race were and folks started trying harder to force a break to stick. The strong guys were antsy to chase everything down, even making huge accelerations from the front. I spent some energy in this portion of the race making sure that I didn’t miss out on any moves. After one move was chased back, I found myself closing on the front with lots of momentum into corner 3 so I took the corners full tilt and hammered the hill that lap and found myself off the front by myself with 6 laps to go. I decided to put some energy in to my solo move and ended up staying off the front until 2.5 laps remaining. Once I was brought back, I slotted back into the top 5. There were no big teams so the pace was not super high. There were also only around 20 people left in the field who were all looking a little tired. Eventually, a guy sent a flyer with one lap to go that would end up being the race winner. On the downhill backside of the course, I spent some energy to slot into 3rd in the field into the last two corners. Once guy came past me in the final sprint (I was only a little tired from my solo flyer) so I ended up with 5th overall (4th in field sprint). Overall I am very happy with this result (and associated upgrade points) and the whole weekend of racing! 

-Jon