This past weekend we made the trip out to Tulsa tough for for 3 days of crit racing. This was my first trip out here and and I'm looking forward to next year.
Day 1: Race started at 8:50pm and was lit up good from the set up lights and fireworks haha. Course had lots of corners and was wide, fast, and flowed good. It was very aggressive and sketchy from the gun, which led to lots of crashes and 2 neutralized restarts. I tried to stay towards the front of the 150 man field to help avoid the hard surges and crashes. Was sitting in a good spot and feeling great with 5 to go but lost some valuable spots in the last couple laps. Left it all out there kept it on 2 wheels and walked away with a top 25.
Day 2: Todays 80 minute race started around 7:45pm and the course had a slight gradual climb followed by a fast gradual decent into a left turn to the finish. Everyone seemed to have got the nerves and madness mostly out of there system the night before and it was a lot safer race then Friday night. I made the mistake of staging late and starting towards the back, which led to burning most of my matches just trying to move up the big field. Once I made it to the front, legs we're feeling pretty flat and knew it was going to be a rough last couple laps. I was hurting the last 2 laps and was just trying to hold onto the wheel in front of me. Managed to hang on to 30th, right outside of the money.
Day 3: Cry baby hill. This was the race I was most excited for and it seemed most of Tulsa Oklahoma was too. This is one of those races that is hard to compare to any other. 4 corners with the famouse "cry baby hill" thrown in there. With All kinds of smells and 1,000+ people lined up the road cheering, partying, and having a good time helps block out the pain some. Around halfway through the race a break of 9 guys went up the road and had around 10 seconds I was feeling good and made a move to bridge to them with 3 others. I was hoping this was the move, but the dominant team Cyclance team didn't want that to happen so it didnt haha. Once we were caught I was able to stay in A good spot, recover, and get ready for the finish. With 2 to go I was sitting a couple wheels off the cyclance train. The last lap things blew up, I made it up and over cry baby hill for last time still in a good position but couldn't hold on to the wheel in front of me on the little decent and flat section after the hill. I looked back waiting for guys to jump around me but I had a gap, put my head down and emptied the tank to the finish. Ended the fun weekend of racing 19th.