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What a course… today I went down to the Ride to Live race at Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, Alabama with Andrea and a bunch of Memphis Velo guys… The course was a 2.2 mile circuit normally used for motorcycle and auto racing. The course was a little bit up and down and had a number of interesting curves to it.

Early in the afternoon, Andrea raced in the Women 123 field. Near the beginning of the third lap she attacked her field and ended up soloing the remaining 4 laps for a win… She will undoubtedly reveal all in her blog… Here are couple of choice photos of that.

[end of first lap-Womens 123]

[Andrea with the win]

[random bike shot]

In the Cat 4 race, we had Matt West coming in 11th with William Frogge, Chris Copeland, Scott Horkey, and Tim Moore coming with the field… It was good to see such a turn out for our Cat IV’s.

[photo from end of first lap-Cat4]

I was sole MV representative in the Cat 123 race. After Little Rock, I was wondering how I would do, but I had a new bike and the course was a good one for me with some up and down. A real power course. Our race was 9 laps of the circuit. For the first 3-4 laps, I was all over the pack as I was having trouble gaining confidence in the corners on my new bike. As the race progressed, I was able to improve my confidence and also limit the amount of catch-up I was having to do.

[riding up the left side - windward, the only lap I did that. Good photo, bad position....]

On the 8th lap, I moved up towards the front in the tailwind section and moved in to position around the long sweeping downhill curve… there were a few people stretched out in front me and I caught up to two others and started working. The field had slowed up through the curves some so we had a bit on a lead to work with. We worked together in a fashion but we were all in a different place and it wasn’t working well. By the S/F line, the field was on us and we were all together again anyway.

[Cat123 - just after getting caught... about 1/2 mile from getting dropped.....]

I was well positioned in the field through the first couple turns as we wound our way around the final lap. For some reason, I found myself on the leading edge inside on the long sweeper (same one from the previous lap that I rolled away on)… I ended up getting jammed up and had to slow up… exiting the corner, I found myself gapped off the field by 10-20 feet… as they accelerated into the last half of the lap, I was done.. I chased for about 1/2 mile pretty hard but they were walking away as we came into the final stretch… So that was that. I rolled in behind the 34 field finishers (and wasn’t scored).. The end result was a bit disappointing, but all in all I was happy with my day. Unlike my Little Rock race, I felt like I belonged there…that I should be a Cat3, etc. Plus my new Felt did well for me.. it just took me a few laps to get the feel.

[riding in solo after getting dropped with 1/2 lap to go...]