Tonight was the Miller Motorsports Park Circuit Race. This was an interesting venue as we were racing on a race track built for cars and motorcycles. It had many sweeping twists and turns but no real hills to speak of, just a couple gentle rises and descents. The facility was just built this spring and it supposedly costs $15,000 a day to rent! But since Larry H. Miller is a big sponsor of this race, we get to ride it for free!
As we were driving to the complex in Tooele I noticed quite a few Subaru WRX STIs going in the other direction. At first, I thought maybe there was a Subaru WRX rally nearby, but then I realized we were headed to a motor-sports track. They had some sort of Subaru WRX race going on. When we got there we went to a vantage point where we could see the whole track and the course looked huge! You don’t get a feel for how much acreage one of these race tracks takes up while watching car racing on TV. The Subaru’s were racing on the far half of the track while motorcycles were on the closer half. The motorcycles looked and sounded fast. Even in the distance, you could tell they were flying at over 100MPH!
This track has many configurations and at 5 PM the track was cleared and they configured it so we would be riding the full lap of about 4.3 miles. The wind was blowing hard so I knew that it would be the determining factor of the race. After a short warm-up on my rollers, I headed to the track to pre-ride it. I got there just as they opened it up for riders and went out for a full lap. The first thing I noticed was how wide the turns were. They may be tight for cars and motorbikes, but on a bicycle, you could pedal through almost every turn. Since the course turned a lot, at any given time you could have a cross-wind, tailwind, or fierce headwind. The worst was the last section of the course heading south. When you turned that direction the wind hit you like a brick wall. I had to shift into my small ring and was even up in my 21! I knew it would be hard for anyone to get away on this course.
I finished my warm-up lap and got ready to race. We started and finished on pit row, which ran parallel to the main straightaway. The race started fast and it was all about positioning. The first two laps were brutal, with a lot of attacks and a high pace. The worst parts were the cross-wind sections as everyone would go to the gutter. Fortunately, the gutter was usually gravel and wouldn’t take a rider down who got bumped or blown off the track, of which I witnessed both. The turns had red and white concrete berms on the inside and outside edges. Even though they looked slick, there were times that called for riding on them, like trying to get a little draft advantage during a sweeping turn.
At about two laps into it, a rider in white attacked and got off. I thought with six laps to go with this brutal wind, there was no way he was going to stay out there. The pace stayed high and there were attacks within the pack, but even after two more laps, that guy was still out there! I couldn’t believe it. I was barely hanging on to the front group myself and I was mostly staying in the draft. Then the front group seemed to start disintegrating and I was in the third group. I had to dig really deep to get back onto the leaders who were regrouping in front of us, I eventually did but some didn’t — our front group was down to about 15 riders. From that point on I just tried to ride even more conservatively, always looking for the best place to get a draft.
It was like a mental exercise to figure out where you need to be going into a turn so you’d have a draft coming out. For example, with the wind coming from the left, riders would be echeloned to the right. But if we had a 180° left turn coming up, I’d get out of echelon, go left and aim for the apex of the turn before the rest of the riders did. This would put me in the wind for a few seconds, but eventually, the group, having gone around the turn near the outside, would swing to the inside and I’d be right there ready to receive the draft. It would also place me towards the front of the group, making up a few places.
For the next few laps, the pace eased up a bit. I think we realized that the lone breakaway rider was going to hold it and we’d be racing for 2nd place. With two laps to go things got hectic again and four riders got off. Actually, two riders got off a little bit earlier, but I thought we had caught them. It wasn’t until the finish that I learned that they stayed away. The leader’s jersey was still in my group so I just sat on. There was no reason for me to chase when I was sitting in 16th place while the leader was in my group and had a strong teammate with him.
When we finally got to the last quarter lap, the pace increased and continued to the finishing stretch. I didn’t have the legs to stay at the front of that group so I hung on hoping riders would die on the long stretch from the last corner to the finish. I sprinted as hard as I could and made up a couple places and ended up 13th. Jim and Ted were in a chase group behind me and Jim ended up winning their sprint and may have even got some GC points for that. I have to say, that was one of the hardest circuit races I’ve ever done. There were many times that I was suffering, but I took consolation in the fact that everyone else must be suffering too.
For Heather’s race, the wind completely shifted directions. It was now coming from the north. It wasn’t as windy as our race, but it was still blowing. She started at 8:10 PM and with the overcast skies, I was wondering how much light the women would have by the end?
I got the binoculars and was able to watch most of the race from the balcony on top of the main building by pit row. Heather got in a break and they seemed to be working well together, but by the last lap she got dropped. Fortunately, they had established a decent size gap to the field that Heather didn’t have to worry about getting caught. But Heather still plugged away to the line for second place. This should give her some decent points to move up in GC standings.