Vic's Prospect Race Report

This weekend was the 3rd annual Vic's Prospect Crit, in the hip Prospect area of south Longmont.  Our team loves this course, it is short at under a minute per lap, very tight, and has lots of corners.  Bottom line if you like old school crits, this is a race for you.

For what ever reason the 35 plus race had a really small field of only 20 guys.  That is too bad, but probably had something to do with the near 100 degree heat and the fact the mother of all Colorado Hill Climbs was the day before, Mt. Evans.  The guys started 6 riders (Marcel, Jim, Josh, Dan, CJ and Matt S) and had the biggest team in the race.  As such we wanted to be aggressive and make sure we had multiple riders in any breaks. 

The race started off slowly with riders feeling out the turns in the early going and people being conservative with the heat, but eventually that all ended and the attacking started for real.  Jim was all over the front and eventually was part of an 8 man move, that both CJ and Matt made as well.  As the field was so small, this was really not a break, but more the fact the field had split in half.  Dan and Josh talked back in the pack and it was decided Josh would try to get up to the break on his own.  This is a good strategy as Josh is a very good sprinter, but would only work if Josh was able to do it solo, as we did not want any more riders up there.  Josh put in a hard effort for 4 to 5 laps and finally made it.  Once he was there the guys had 4 of the riders in the 9 man break and the best sprinter, so it was a major advantage for mix1.

There was some attacking in the break and eventually it split, which is not too unusual with it being so large with 9 riders.  The split worked out well for mix1, as Jim and Josh made the front 5, and the other 3 riders were all solo, as their team mates got stuck in the back half of the split.  The 5 riders put down the hammer and lapped the field.  Once that happened the guys were in a good place and Dan was there to help set up Josh to win.  Jim attacked with 2 laps to go in a win or die type of move.  He nearly pulled it off and made it to the last corner with the lead.  It forced the other teams to chase him down and that set up Josh perfect for the win.  All in all a good day with Josh taking the win, Jim getting 5th, CJ taking 7th and Matt in 9th.

 After lapping the field Dan went to the front, on the wheel of past National Champ Byron Nix from Rio, to set up Josh in 3rd.  The tactic worked great and gave Josh a better chance to win.

Early on in the break with Jim leading the 5 guys as they worked to lap the field.