Veterans Cross Race Report

I was still feeling the affects from Saturday's crash over at the University of St. Mary. A trip over the bars when you do not expect it will do that to you. Today I just lined up and and basically rode a comfortable pace not to exert myself. At least that was the plan....

We Single Speeders lined up behind the 58 Cat 4 men riders and were instructed to begin our race 10 seconds after theirs. My streak of starts came to an end has I was DFL coming into the first turn. That first turn was all mayhem as most of the Cat 4 Men were still there in a bottle neck. So much for the separating the two classes to allow fairer racing....

Here is Scott Schmidt video



I found a good line and quickly passed about a dozen riders in that first turn and for a second got out of my planned "take it easy and protect your head pace". I heard Gerard yelling at me and quickly backed it down a bit. Even with a "tempo" pace I started working my way through the field with the other Single Speeders. I could see Monkey Wrench's Rich Thompson and my teammate Mark Cole out front on one of the long straights (thanks to our red numbers). I had no goal of catching them, but wanted to bridge up to 360's Keith Walberg and Bike Tek's Justin Griest. Bill Anderson is behind me in points so I also had to keep an eye out for him. I was basically out there trying to earn enough points to win the Championship at next weeks final round - De Stad Cross Cup.

On the last lap I opened her up and passed Justin for 4th place. Keith was up there about 10 seconds and I tried to catch him, but I left it one lap to late. I will take 4th place points and head into the final round with a secure points lead. If I earn a top 10 placing, I'll be set.

It was great to see another good size junior field. We had 9 juniors. We are hopeful that some day we will have field of 30 to 40 juniors. Bring those kids out....Christopher rounded out the top three by taking the last podium spot with a strong 3rd place finish behind Epic Bike's Aaron Stull and Bicycle Shack Racing's Joey Todd. This last event of the day was crazy long for beginners and juniors. Christopher was out there nearly 45 min and started to bonk. He was getting mad at me because I kept telling him he only had one more lap. 4 laps latter.....

I still don't remember much from Saturday after the crash. I need to head out to the University this week and finalize the course. I broke my helmet cam and Garmin 305 in the crash so I don't have the course to download.