Campus Corner Crit

I raced in Norman, OK on Sunday at the Campus Corner Crit. It was HOT!!! I found a nice shady spot in one of the corners to lounge all day until my race at 4:00. Did I mention it was HOT!!! Only 3 other women were there. I heard no women showed up because they didn't want to race 55 minutes as the flyer said. Whatever, that is such a lame excuse. The women's race had a $400 purse, which was second only to the p/1/2/3 men's race. I would have race 2 hours for that kind of purse. Anyway, they shortened the race to 30 minutes plus 5 laps. I guess they felt sorry for us. It would have been a little boring for 4 women to race for 55 minutes. Anyway, it was HOT!!! Andrea Rat was there and she is super fast. We are sorta on the same team so I told her at the start line, "when you come around to lap us, slow up a bit and I'm going to jump on." She said "ok, cool, we'll split everything." So we took off and she really takes off. She took off like a madwoman. I had a little difficulty clipping in and then I chased like crazy trying to grab her wheel. I can go 30 mph, but only for a short time. I think she did the entire first lap at 30. So I sat up at waited on the other 2 girls. As soon as they caught me, one of them attacked, so I had to jump and cover it. And then the other attacked. They were on the same team so I knew this was not going to much fun for me. But I could tell by their brathing that they didn't have many more of those little jumps in them. The first prime, one of the girls jumped and I went with her and came around her before the line. And the second prime, neither of them would pull,so I jumped way too early and go a gap going in to the line. So I was happy with 2 out of 2 primes, plus I knew I could out sprint them both for the finish. I kept looking over my shoulder for Andrea to come flying by but I never saw here again. Toward the end I heard someone in crowd say that she crashed. I sorta slowed up the pace a little because I didn't know where she was or how she was. The pace got super slow in the last few laps. Finally one girl jumped, I went with her and then she sat up. It's that little cat and mouse game that I am actually learning to love! So the last corner I was following a wheel and we weren't going too fast. I was a little impatient and I jumped hard and put my head down and sprinted my butt off. I won it by a good distance, so I was happy with the race. We raced for almost 45 minutes and we averaged almost 22 mph. I saw Andrea after the race and she crashed in the same spot where almost 5 other crashed happened earlier. She was pretty scraped and I'm sure bruised today, but as always, in good spirits. So, it was a good race and a good payout and it kinda gave me the racing bug again. So, who knows, maybe some crits are in my future.

By the way: I won an Aliente saddle with carbon rails if anyone is interested in buying it from me. I am very saddle picky and the Aliente doesn't work so well for me. And it is blue/gray in color. Send me and email and let me know: mjquigz@yahoo.com.