Dan, Matt and Brian were at the Aliquippa crit today in the 1,2,3 race. The course is a bit like Westlake — industrial park with mostly sweeping turns. Really windy again. They were the primary aggressors, with Matt taking off in the opening laps. They heard some guys saying “who is that?” And then, “oh just let him go, he won’t last”.
Well it took a pretty good chase to bring him back as Matt is really riding strong this year. Carbon Racing traded off attacks for the remainder of the race. Dan got the first prime. Pretty quickly it was apparent we were going to be marked closely. So everything got chased. With 2 laps to go Brian attacked into the wind, a Freddie Fu guy came with him … and then those two were joined by Matt and 2 others. With the field bearing down, Matt took a hard pull down the final stretch into the wind. Ruggery (Freddie Fu) jumped first with Brian on his wheel, but just couldn’t get him at the line. Very close (half a wheel), but no cigar. Matt took 5th in a photo finish as well.
Erin and 4 other women showed up for the race and the promoter decided to combine them with the men’s 4/5 field. It was a typical 4\5 field with attack after attack and no one staying away, especially with the headwind. With 1 lap to go Erin was feeling pretty good coming into the turn to the finish trying to stay in the draft. Noone was holding a line and it started to get very sketchy as she was stuck in the middle of the pack. There were 3 guys accelerating in the front so she found a little path out of the field and did a dead sprint into the head wind. She found herself out ahead of the pack and holding her sprint to get 4th in the men’s field!!
After that Erin jumped in the Men’s 1,2,3 race for 7 laps and got gapped in the turn then had to fight the headwind where she burned her last match! Overall Carbon racing had a great day and we can proudly say that will be the last race that Carbon Racing sports every color of the rainbow on their clothes. Our new clothes are in and we hope to race them in Michigan at the Tour De Frankenmuth and Snake Alley Criterium in Iowa this weekend.
