Mississippi Grand Prix (MSGP)

The Mississippi Grand Prix was supposed to be a good test for me matched with a decent result. It’s amazing that no matter what you think may happen and how things have been in the past you are always one day away from a completely new experience. This is exactly how I felt this past weekend.


MSGP – The Friday Night Blizzard!

The Friday Night Criterium for the Mississippi Grand Prix (MSGP) always marks the departure of the race. It is usually a fast and super technical race. Everyone is a little nervous and fresh, willing to test their legs ahead of a long weekend. This crit would have been no different than other years if it had been held. Friday afternoon a strong storm system moved through the area bringing tornado warnings, strong thunderstorms accompanied by tons of rain. I was already feeling nervous about the race knowing how technical the course would be combined with the rain. I have to take a moment here to really thank my teammate who came down for this race Scott Barnes. Scott kept psyching me up for the crit and together we hatched a great plan to get ready for the crit.

After we registered Friday evening we went back to the hotel room and jumped on the trainers in the hotel room. I knew that trying to get a warm up out in the weather (even if the rain stopped temporarily) would demoralize me and would make it difficult to get in a good warm up. This worked wonderfully. After about 30 minutes on the rollers (watching TV to boot) we were ready to head out into the weather to ride to the Crit. This would give us a chance to get out in the elements and let the initial shock of the weather get out of us before the race. As I was putting my helmet on to walk out of the hotel room door my cell phone rang. It was Rob Konrad – the race had been cancelled due to the rain. Scott initially thought that Rob might be messing with us since we had been debating all afternoon over whether the weather would cause the Crit to be cancelled. I knew that Rob wouldn’t screw with us so close to the race, but since we were all warmed up and ready to go we decided to go ride down to the course anyways. Getting down there, we got a chance to chat with the other riders and I showed Scott the course that we would have done. I think he was glad it was cancelled after all. We decided to go for about an hour ride and not knowing the area I asked Kenny B. from the Herring Gas Team for a route to take. This is their home race and they hold their training camps up here so I suspected that he would know where to send us. On the way back from the route he gave us we passed a little ghetto section of town. Scott jokes that he thought Kenny might be trying to get rid of the competition by sending us through this section of town. I do have to admit that I was pretty impressed by the number of rims we saw in that 2 block radius.

Getting back to the hotel from our ride I met up with Kate and my mom. I was bummed that they wouldn’t get a chance to see us race in the crit. They were still excited about the road race the next day but I knew that the race would be a lot of waiting for them and in general the Road Races aren’t as exciting for spectators. I showered and they got settled into their rooms before we went across the street to Mitchell’s Steak & Seafood Restaurant. Sitting in the main part of the room was the entire Inferno Racing Squad – I swear they must have brought 8 people to this race! We had a good dinner of which the best part for me was the rolls with the sweet butter. Afterward, we went to the local Dairy Queen for desert before turning to bed. The morning was going to be fast with fresh legs and anxious riders.

MSGP – Nerves of Steel

Saturday morning came early. I actually woke up before the wake up call or alarm and got some time in on the net while in bed. Usually I would have just kicked on the TV but Scott was still sleeping and after his long drive the day before I figure he wanted all the sleep he could get. My mom did call fairly early before I even got up to ask me a question. I love how she was wide awake at something like 5:30 AM! After breakfast with Kate, my mom, Scott, and I, we loaded up the Bicycle World Van and took off for the race. My mom and Kate were going to finish packing up and meet us there.

The race started out at the top of a hill with a pretty fast descent starting the race. Before we started I rode the finishing hill a couple of times to stretch the legs. I figured that since the Friday Night Crit was canceled the race would be on from the gun. I was right! The descent was fast and as soon as we came to the first hill attacks were flying. The race wasn’t quite as aggressive as the Texas races but it was still pretty fast. The hard part was that the first part of the course was pretty technical for a road course. This is because of what seemed like a lot of turns, combined with the narrow roads and a section of road that reminded me of the Rouge Roubaix. During the rough section of road, which was also pretty narrow, the peloton was spread across the entire road. On the descents on this section people’s water bottles were popping out as we were flying down the hills at close to 30 mph. This along with people swerving, braking etc. made this section even more nervous. A little after this section we entered a little town which had several turns at full gas. It was in this town on the second lap that an entire group of riders got dropped from the field. The rest of the course was rolling and actually really pretty.

From that first slew of attacks on the first lap a few riders broke away. I’m not sure who was in the break but I’m pretty positive the Metro/Volkswagen did not have a rider in it because in an impressive show of teamwork and strength they sat 4 riders on the from setting tempo to slowly bring back the break. This first lap was very nervous for me especially on the descents as at times all I could think about was the crash that I had several weeks ago. Having Metro at the front made this better because the speeds were pretty steady. Soon these thoughts faded but the race was steel very nervous! Once Metro caught the break, attacks began to go again, but this time they weren’t going anywhere. Someone would attack, the sit up and the entire field would slam into the rear of the leaders – usually at the bottom of the hills. This meant, the usual swerving, hard braking, tires skidding etc. Now for the first lap I managed to stay up in the front 20 or so the ironic thing is that I dropped back to talk to Scott and Rob who were at the back. Staying at in the front 20 in this race was a complete, and constant, battle. Once at the back I realized that it was a much easier ride at the back. Scott and I decided to stay at the back during the second lap to conserve energy. Usually the winning breaks go at the end of the third lap and with this being a stage race with the large 80 rider field we didn’t think that much would go very far. We were wrong and consequently missed the winning break which I believe went toward the end of the second lap. Strangely enough it was only two rider’s but evidently the right two – Carlos Vargas and David Wenger. During the third lap we saw Herring at the front chasing, Eric Murphy, last years winner, along with several others all of which were unsuccessful. With about 10k to go I started moving up being careful to follow the center line rule. I had been warned once about it while not actually creating a violation and didn’t want to be relegated to the back of the peloton while trying to move up (a little unproductive). So I was moving up nicely until the moto ref moved up to the front of the race for something and about 20 riders zoomed past me on the left hand side – ACROSS THE YELLOW LINE!!! This put me pretty far back in the pack again and I was disgusted. With 5k to go and not much room to move around on the road I know that I would not be able to make it to the front. I resided to just ride it in and make sure that no time gaps were created on the final climb to the finish. The finish was pretty hard and I ran out of gas about 50 meters from the finish (the climb was about 1k long). I came though at the back on Josh Rosby’s wheel getting pack time. Scott finished with a top 20 and I was happy to conserve energy to try and do something in the TT in the evening. It was interesting that the two riders in the winning break ended up putting about 2 minutes on the field.

After the road race we hurried back to the hotel, cleaned up got some lunch and bid farewell to my mom, Kate and I guess I should mention my mom’s baby here Demi (her new puppy who is actually pretty cute). After they were on their way we took a nap and then headed off to the evening TT.

MSGP – 20 seconds / 299 WATTS

Since Dan Bennett, who is in from New Mexico doing this race to prep for the Gila, was doing the Masters race and would start the TT a good 45 minutes before we would we needed to be out there in time for him to get his warm up in. This actually turned out to be a good thing as Rob K, Darren S. and myself had enough time to ride the TT course before the start to get a feel for the course. The course didn’t change from prior years but I managed to pay attention to the rises and landscape to make a game plan of where to push it and where to back it off a little. The TT was a little under 4 miles but with two pretty good hills coming before the halfway point it was real easy to blow up before the finish. So we rode the course, sat back down relaxed and then got about an hour warm up in – I felt great. So everything was going as planned. Until, I roll up to the start and see that Rob is lined up, I’m to go off right and front of him and there are only like 2 riders to start before I go. I realize that I still have my jersey on (meaning that my skin suit is not pulled up), and that I need to put on my aero helmet and ear plugs. I managed to get everything on with Ali’s help – thanks Ali – and get to the line 20 seconds before I was to start. Actually that’s plenty of time but I think the rush of adrenaline of almost missing my start time was a little much and I wasn’t really focused going into the TT. I did stick to the plan but didn’t feel like I could punch it when I needed too. I ended up finishing up with a time of 8 minutes 38 seconds. When I saw Rob come across the line I said to him “you put 20 seconds into me” I was right he came through with an official time of 8:18. I didn’t feel great in the TT and only put out 299 watts but coming in 20 seconds behind Rob was good. It’s about where I was in late June last year so this year is definitely going better. Last year Rob’s 8:18 was good for 5th, this year it was good for 24th, my time put me at 42nd. Still a ways to go.

MSGP – Attacking With A Lap To Go???
For a weekend that was supposed to increase my confidence and produce good results I have only proved that I can finish with the pack. With Sunday’s “Cir-terium” there was one last chance to try to get a result. (Cir-terium = to long to be a true Criterium but too technical for follow vehicles so a wheel pit needs to b used) I got a long warm up in, as usual, on the rollers and was ready to go. Before the race I was telling Scott and Dan that if I had the legs I was going to make my move with a lap to go. Dan has plenty of experience with crits through racing with the Cuban Rocket, Dan Larsen, and several other pro’s. He said that with today’s field and open course there was no way that I would make it to the finish like that. He said he that the field could swallow me at will and that there was no way that I could hold off a field coming into a sprint by myself. He said that I should try to position my self in the top ten coming into the sprint and go like hell to hold position in the sprint. The ironic thing about all of this is we are discussing the finish even before talking about getting to the finish. The latter of which I did not accomplish. I got popped from the field right around 40 minutes into the 80 minute Cirterium. Disappointing. I should have forced my way up in the field as I’m sure I was too far back. The hardest part of the course was the right turn right after the finish which had a slight headwind then a left turn with a slight rise. I had to sprint in this section every lap and had no power. Looking back at the power file I had over 16 sprints in this section over 300 watts. Well that closed out the weekend. The next racing I’ll be doing is in a few weeks at Joe Martin. Actually Joe Martin Might be slightly easier then this past weekend – but I doubt it :)