Monsters of the Midway

Monsters of the Midway was today and is the most classic four corner crit you can imagine. It's down on the University of Chicago campus and being actually nearby the city, it ends up drawing out a who's who of the local racing scene.

The race was pretty simple. A few guys early tried to get into a break, not a whole lot came of them. Finally, I got into a move with about 8 guys. It seemed like the right move but it didn't have enough gusto for whatever reason. As soon as we were willfully reeled in, a counter-attack happened which ended up sticking to the finish. Austin, my teammate, was in the move, so blocking and establishing the move was a priority. Once we realized it was gone, there was nothing more to do than setup for the field sprint. I decided to try to be rather active in this and see how it'd end up. I got near the front with about 2 to go and held position. On the backstretch of the last lap, the Intellegentsia train of 2 got setup and given the cross/head wind through that section and the impetus of the group behind, I had a good feeling that wasn't going to last long as there was still a ways to go. I just kept my head on a swivel looking for the next train to fly by and sure enough it did. I managed to jump in at about 8th wheel. We made the final two corners and the long sprint was on. I wheel hopped the whole sprint and ended up finishing 2nd in the field sprint - good enough for 8th overall. Austin ended up 5th and Ryan 12th giving us 3 top 12 finishes in an 81 person race, we'd have liked to win obviously, but that's not too bad! The Fox River Omnium is next weekend, but just as importantly track starts up on Thursday! Looking forward to breaking in the new rig!