Pacific Raceway, Cat 4/5 Criterium, 7/1/08

Made my 3rd trip down to Pacific Raceway for the Cat 4/5 race (only my 2nd time to race since the last trip I declared a wash-out after seeing a drenched track). I have only been on my bike once in the last 2 weeks; wife is out of town traveling and I am covering the home front and kids solo. Sometimes fresh legs works in your favor and sometimes not so much so I had a real wait and see attitude.
Weather was great, probably mid 70's with no wind .... basically perfect. The course is the flat track with the two dragstrips and wide loops which is my favorite. Craig, CycleU team coach was there and several team mates who I had not met before. Sorry I missed getting everyone's name in memory but seemed like everyone enjoyed the race.

So about the race, typical warm up, brought no water which is really fine with me for a 50 min race. True to form I forgot to clear or interval my powertap so I need to clean out the warm up data. Typical scramble up to the line and there were approximately 60 riders from a variety of teams. Not sure but we may have been racing with Cat 3/4/5 together again. First lap starts out with no neutral roll out so by turn 1 the pace is clipping along pretty good, I work to get in the front 10 riders. Lap 2, not alot of action but different individuals are cruising up to the front to put the hammer down. At the long back stretch it gets strung out single file but it still is pretty unorganized and no one is making any serious moves. I am sticking in middle/front of the pack just grabbing wheels trying not to fall back.
Prem lap comes up and you can feel the pace pick up. I didn't join in the sprint, mainly out of self doubt (that match burning thing) and I was also out of position at about 20th coming out of the last turn. Gotta remember to either organize with the team or grab a better wheel for that bottom turn. Everyone sits up after the line and the peloton rolls on.
Somewhere in the next couple of laps was another prem but I missed the bell so don't really know what happened. It must have not been that serious of an effort because I really wondered what happened to the 2nd prem when they called out 2 laps to go.
2 laps is called and I move up to 10th'ish because the pack is sounding way too healthy. Lots of chatter, no one looks winded at all, and groups are starting to talk tactics. Pace picks up but you can sense people are loading up for the last lap.
Last lap, in the front 1/3 going into the 1st of the two turns. A WA Wines guy makes a move coming out of turn one against the wall and I follow his wheel. We quickly move up to front 15'ish going into the bottom turn. Rounding out the back of that turn I move to the outside edge of the last right hander afraid of getting caught against the barrier. I am feeling really good and decide to dive into the sprint, I fly around some people that are pulling out but am still just holding position against riders that are better organized on the inside. Just can't find a wheel to follow and I don't have a sprint from the last corner all the way to the line. I think I finished somewhere around 15th which is respectable for me.
Lessons learned:
I have finally figured out how to take the 2nd corner without reducing speed. I am sure other racers behind me appreciate this but my quads really enjoyed not having to pound as hard coming out of that corner. I sat in the front part of the pack the entire ride. No pulls at the front, no hanging on the outside in the wind, less accelarations required out of the corners, no slinky effect from pack surges ...that was a huge effort saver .... somewhat boring but it made a monsterous difference in how strong i finished.
I should have went for one of the prems. I had the legs to contest either one of the two prems or the finish but that would have required some planning on my own or in a team effort. I could have focused on one of the prems but I wanted to finish strong ... finishing any stronger would require moving up to top 5 in the last corner or some team tactics .... both a good idea.
End of the last lap I averaged 32mph, 457 watt avg, with a max of 750 watts. I think I was in 50x12 in the home stretch and that was too much gear with not enough cadence. I think I could hit more speed with less gear/more cadence. I obviously thought differently going into the turn but I either need to test this in training or try different next time.

Overall,
Great nice for racing and riding in the middle of the pack made the race much easier. I told the guys we must have rode slow but they said we averaged 25 for the 50 minutes ... they call that pedal efficiency right? I think I graduated from raw newbie to pack fill and will work on making that jump to contesting for something. I would also like to get some team tactics going, my cornering is good enough now I could lead out for someone which would be fun. I'll also work on getting some pics to liven up these long post.
Again, sorry I didn't get everyone's name and please chime in with your experience.