A day that was forecast to be cold and rainy turned out to be a great day for racing with temps in mid 50s. This is a great but challenging course. The cat 3 had a strong field of maybe 22 with a strong presence from Bertolli racing team who had 5 people in the field. I was happy to see fellow teammate Mitch Tallen also lined up.
The race broke up by the second climb with 3 guys off the front including one from Bertolli. The chase group was down to maybe 8 or so three of them from Bertolli and they obviously would not work to chase their own teammate. Only 4 of us were working to chase the brake and actually had them within sight by the beginning of lap2. However at that point the pace eased up and the gap grew to several minutes. After that group settled into a leisurely pace. By the 3rd lap there were only 7 of us left and the second half of the last lap was spent covering attacks by the 3 guys left from Bertolli. With couple miles to go one of the guys from Bertolli attacked and I was the only one to follow. We caught one of the guys from the break who had been caught. Would up being a two men sprint for third and with my pathetic sprinting ability had to settle for 4th. Overall a fun day of racing.
Congratulations to Dane on 3rd place in the 4 field.
