BASP #2 - Sierra Point Night Race

[Jim Hewett]

Like last week, rain the day before the race cleared to create pretty good conditions on race day.  The course at Sierra Point was a little soft, but the weather was ideal for a race under the lights.  The men's A race was going off at 8:00, so I took a nap in the middle of the day then made my way down for the festivities.

A quick reconnoiter of the course revealed lots of corners.  They do the best they can with this venue, which is a large flat field of landfill with a small hill on one side.  The course starts with a paved sprint to a left turn onto grass as you hop the curb.  Some bumpy dirt lead to a painted piece of plywood laid down in the middle of a right turn (danger!).  Then three sections of paved sprinting seperated by 180 degree turns to a left turn back onto the dirt.  I guess we climbed the hill a couple of times on one side and then into a lot of turns and then over the only barriers on the course (2 low barriers with decent spacing - jumpable) and back up the hill.  We worked our way up and down the hill a few times and then over the "Bridge of Sighs", the only forced dismount of the course, and back through chicane to the long bumpy dirt to a 180 degree turn onto the paved finish.  Not much climbing, and lots of sprinting out of and into corners.

I was very happy to get a front row call up from my third place finish at the first BASP race.  Scott and Aaron were there from Rock Lobster, and I knew that Krishna is riding into some fitness.  As for me, I was feeling a little flat from the week's riding.  I did intensity on Wednesday (30 minute flat threshold ride on the road bike) and followed it by a kind of big mountain bike ride on Thursday.  The weather was so nice and I wanted to show my friend Jack some new trails, but it left the legs a bit unrecovered.  I guess I've been doing shorter rides for my 'cross training and not putting in big hours but I'm too arrogant to admit that 40 miles and 5500 feet of climbing on the mountain bike is not a "recovery ride" right now.

The gun went off and we all sprinted hard for that first turn and the jump over the curb.  This is often the place for a pile-up and none of us wanted to be on the wrong side of it.  Aaron, Scott and I made a break pretty quickly and got away a little.  They were hammering all the straight sections and I could tell I would not be able to hang on if they could keep it up.  I'm starting to feel the disadvantage of racing against these two guys (friends and teammates of each other) from a tactical perspective.  It seems I am going to have to work extra hard to get a win with both of them in the race.

A Cal Giant racer was in sight behind me on our third lap or so, and as I came around one of the 180 degree paved turns, I think I slipped on the yellow line paint and went down kind of hard.  I was back up right away, but Anastasio Flores took his chance to get around me.  I noticed a little shifting difficulty from a bent deraileur hanger, but nothing too bad.  In the rush of adrenaline, the physical injuries do not usually become apparent until later (mainly just lost skin and some hip soreness).  Anastasio and I were back and forth a little and soon joined by Krishna Dole.  We rode together for many laps more or less together.  Anastasio was digging hard and fought to stay in front most of the time.  With a few laps to go, I washed out on the painted plywood sheet and went down on the pavement again.  Krishna came around me and encouraged me to follow his attack on the paved chicane.  He put in a strong effort and got away from me to catch Anastasio and pass him.  The last couple of laps followed this order, with Krishna pulling ahead enough to avoid a sprint finish on the pavement.  I poured it on at the end to catch Anastasio, but he held me off to the finish.  Though it seemed first and second were out of the question after 4 laps, we had a good time fighting for third through fifth.  I lost the fight, but still earned the last step on the podium.

I've got two more BASP races to try for the win.  I'll be gunning for the Rock Lobster guys at Golden Gate and Coyote Point!