gig harbor circuit race
new course this year for the second circuit race. the town was pretty excited about it. they even had an article in the paper that featured a picture of me (but misnamed as "mark hone).
anyway, broadmark / hagens berman had more than 10 riders, with RMc and Rad making rare appearances. our man for the day was clayville as he has been riding strong and would be at the next race (whereas chad and i wouldn't and tubbs wasn't there). well, chad attacked as soon as the neutral section ended. campbell closed the gap and i countered. two riders bridged across to me and we rolled off. another group bridged, including chad, making us a group of around seven. not even two miles into the race the winning move was made. we hit the major hill of the circuit (about 500 meters long) and shed a few riders to be down to myself and chad as well as t mays from first rate mortgage and bethel from the garage billiards team. chad and i soft pedaled the break while the other two seemed to be really giving it; chad and i could probably win from this move, but we were waiting for nick. we stayed at about 30 seconds from the pack.
suddenly, we got a time check that one rider was 10 seconds behind. we looked back and it was clayville. well, i'll be damned. once nick got to us we put the hammer down and built the gap. at the intermediate sprint over the hill, clayville attacked at the bottom. mays and i didn't put any effort into it, assuming that clayville would come back to us. chad went across and the two of them took off. i thought they'd sit up and wait for us, but they had enough fire power to keep it up. i sat for a while and then worked to stay away from the pack.
in the end, with the pack a scant 10 seconds behind us we sprinted for 3rd place, which i took.
things look good for ian and nick, going into the last circuit race.
