Collegiate Regional Crit

Today in wonderful Rantoul, Illinois we had the regional crit. The course is set on an old Air Force Base on some of the roughest roads i've ever raced a crit on. I guess i can't complain considering some of the surfaces i've raced on in Belgium it wasn't that bad. The worst part of the race had to be the guy burning leaves in his yard, we all got smoked out every time through the start finish area. Anyways, getting down to the actual racing, it was regionals which means double pts for everything. First place primes were worth 10pts so i was up to trying to win as many as possible. I ended up winning 3 of them. Unfortunatley i just didn't have good legs today, i felt like i had a powerful sprint, but i just couldn't keep the hammer down. The 3rd prime i won was with 10min left of racing. I got a pretty large gap so thought i would give it a go and see if someone would come up to me. After a few laps by myself, i finally saw the field again and it was Jake Rytlewski on the front of the field pulling me back. It was too bad i didn't get some company, but I don't think anything was getting off the front without Jake's team Marion involved. Pretty much the race was set to be a field sprint so i started getting myself prepared and set up in the right position. On turn 2 on the last lap i was sitting 8th wheel just to my left i heard the inevitable crash and swore i saw the dark blue of Marion. Coming into the last turn of the race i was 4th wheel, with Brandon Gavic leading it out, Jake on his wheel and a Northwestern guy in front of me. In the last turn a few guys tried jamming the inside, lost their lines and slammed into me, which sent me bouncing off the curb, i was able to keep the bike up and finally threw a little elbow to get untangled and restarted my sprint. I was able to overtake a few guys, but could only manage 7th. Nothing really to get upset about, because it's bike racing as usual. Guys who don't hold position well will always jam the corners and try to punch their way to the front, I just have to be more aggressive in pushing back and holding my sprint despite getting jammed into. The worst part of the day was the flash of blue i saw crashing into the ground was Jon Swain and John Royal of Marion. After the race they were still laying on the ground and we thought for sure they had broken something. It turned out to be a lot of road rash and no broken bones. Tomorrow we have the tough road race at Kickapoo State Park. Hopefully i can pull down a win, but we'll have to see how the legs are treating me.