TX State Championship Road Race
The 2013 TX State Road Championships is the last race of the season and a major event for Watt Posse Racing. We were all looking forward to a weekend together after a long hiatus from being on the road together. The P1 championship is always a stacked field and super challenging. We had hopes for a good result on that day, but most of our ambition was set on the age-based championship on Sunday, where we can field several riders in the 30-34 age group. I won’t say much about the Saturday P1 Championship other than it was about 25 minutes of racing for most of us and then about two-thirds of the field was dropped. We rode the second half of the first lap easy, just chatting with some fellow racers and pulled the plug at the end of that lap. There were a little over 30 starters and only 12 finishers. It was a disappointing day for most. We were in good spirits that evening though. We had dinner with Billy and Will Hughes and Bill Lewis from Fresh Racing; watched Collin and Dromgoole play watermelon toss at the grocery store; played “hide the day old slice of pizza”; and did general horsing around and trash talk at the hotel room. It was all good fun; good fun that we hadn’t experienced together in quite some time. Sunday’s race was a big target for us. Last year I made the front group and was on my way to a possible 2nd place, but broke two spokes in the run in to the finish when I attacked the group. My wheel was totally out of true and dragging the brakes. It was also too dangerous for me to put in a sprint on an already broken wheel, so I rode in for 4th. I wanted better this year, but knew we had good chances with Collin or Dromgoole as well. Collin went up the road really early with Mario Arroyave, which was odd, because in this race breaks usually go and come back often all of the first lap. His break opened up a big gap quick, likely because the other big team there, Think Finance, had the previous year’s winner with him. Ryan and I sat back for a bit and neutralized some attacks from a few riders. Collin and Mario were over a minute up the road halfway through the first lap, so I thought it might be time to initiate a second group and break some legs at the same time. There is a steady climb after the turn at the top of the course that is almost a mile long at a steady grade of 4-5%. The wind was coming from our right, so I put it into the gutter and rode full gas all the way up the climb and kept the pressure on over the top. The field split into several small groups and a few riders made it up to my wheel, but no one would commit to pulling out a gap on the dropped riders. The group came back together. I tried again at the top of the big climb and only Adam Mills was able to ride with me. We both had teammates up the road, so it didn’t make much sense for either one of us to commit 100% to staying away, so we ended up getting pulled back by the group. After that there were a few attacks here and there, but nothing that went anywhere. Going into the second lap it was obvious that Collin and Mario would not be pulled back, they were going to take 1st and 2nd. Carlos Vargas went off the front at one point, which wasn’t too concerning, but then Andrew Armstrong attacked and bridged up to Vargas. Ryan attacked to get into the break, but he was neutralized. We were on the flat section leading into the climb and it seemed like a bad place to try to attack at that point, so I decided I would try near the top of the climb. By the time we got on the climb they had opened up a big enough gap that it wouldn’t be possible to get across alone, so I had to take some help with me. I made some splits in the group, but again, no one was willing to commit so it came back together. We had missed the second group for 3rd and 4th place. At that point the race for decent placings was over. Ryan flatted and caught a ride in the wheel truck and I decided to attack as hard as possible on all the climbs to see how many people I could to crack for fun. I ended up reducing the group down to about six riders, three of which were the remaining riders in contention for 1st through 3rd in the 35-39 age group. I rode hard at the front of the group quite a bit for the last quarter of the race since I felt good and wanted to drop as many people as possible. When it came to the finish I wanted to help out a guy I know that was in the 35+ age group, so I gave him a lead out with everyone guttered behind him. He pulled out the sprint for the jersey, which made me happy. At the finish we saw Collin and asked for the result. He took 2nd. Mario is super strong on the climbs and has won here before so it was definitely an honorable defeat. So we walked away with a podium placing at the State Championships, which is a great way to wrap up the season. We waited for podium pics for Collin, cleaned up, and then headed to Waco for our traditional food stop. Waco is the home of one of our favorite stops and team sponsors, Terry and Jo’s Food For Thought. Collin, Biwan, and I each had a huge pile of nachos and I don’t remember what Dromgoole had through the following Nacho haze. It was a great way to end the weekend before we parted ways back to the real world.
