The Austin Buzz

How the USA Crit Series Austin Race went down:

There were 120 men who lined up at the start all looking pretty fast. The announcer did the usual call ups and before long we were on our way into a 70 minute race.

Three Toyota riders, one Health net, three Abercrombie Fitch, several Hotel San Jose lads and a large mix of local riders made up the field. I was racing with Yosvany Falcon and Frank Travieso. Two strong as hell riders. Yosvany and me were to look after Frank and make sure that he saved energy until the end.

The course was a flat Nascar course. All left turns and all out. The race began with a bang and we were off at full speed right away. Attacks were going quickly so Yosvany and I had to cover them to make sure nothing got away and potentially lap the field. About 10 minutes in Ivan Stevic attacked hard and so I went to chase him down joining him about a lap later. We had a pretty good gap but riders were bridging up to us and before too long we had about 6 riders. Most of them however were tired from bridging the gap and were not able to put in a big pulls. As soon as that cam back riders began attacking again and again.

Yosvany got into a move at one point and so did Frank. Both guys were marked heavily though and no one wanted them to get away.

As the race ran its natural course of ebbing and flowing a group of three riders got away. Mark Heckman, Sean Sullivan, and another I am not sure about. They built up a substantial lead that could have been dangerous. Mark and Sean are two classy riders that win races like this.

8 laps to go! Yosvany and I got to the front and started drilling it. We closed the gap down fast, but I didn't think that it was fast enough. Sean saw us closing in and attacked his two breakaway companions with three to go. It was going to be close. Yosvany took one last big pull and brought the breakaway within reach with one lap to go. On that final lap Frank took over and worked his magic. He attacked between corners two and three and just kept going the rest of the way to the line. He came in alone with his arms up. If he had a power meter he would have broken it.

The race went down flawlessly and it was one of the best races I have been in with AEG. We worked so well together and ended up with the win. Money in the bank!

Later that night we all went out and partied to celebrate out victory. You all can guess how that went down...aaa yeah!