Merco Downtown Grand Prix

A fun technical course with lots of opportunities to try different tactics. I was having a bit of trouble getting settled in the first few laps and was doing a lot of jumping out of corners, wasting a lot of energy. Finally settled into a nice groove taking smooth lines through all the corners (majority on the inside line). We were neutralized and stopped after a big crash, but restarted as if nothing happened a minute later.

Got myself out of being midpack fodder when Ryan found himself on my wheel. I towed him up to the front with 6 to go after the pack sat up from a prime sprint and led the pack until the first corner of 4 to go. Pretty tired from this effort and drifted back in for an unspectacular finish. If the race was a lap or two shorter or if I were a lap or two more fit I could have provided a good lead out or had something for the sprint myself.

Merco Foothills Road Race

This was my first road race last year and it was a good introduction to road racing, even if I did much worse in all my following road races than I did in this one the same time last year. No particular goals for this other than to get a second race in during the weekend and gauge my fitness.

I played nanny for the first lap checking to make sure Mice were eating and drinking and had enough fuel. Then I made my way to the front for the last third of the second lap and took a few rotations on the front to keep the pace up and help form up Voltron for the sprint. Gassed myself in this effort and lost contact on Cox Ferry about 1km earlier than last year, but got in a good effort and provided some good help for the sprint even if it didn’t quite pay off. The mouse lead out just barely got boxed in and fell apart.