Tonight’s race featured seven NCC riders in the B group, making up over 20% of the field, along with Michael racing in the C group. Your race director’s trainer is in the trainer hospital this week, so he joined from the sidelines in order to provide a little encouragement and perhaps a bit of heckling to those who were out on the course. Some of the riders seemed to have trouble adjusting to the new Daylight Saving Time conditions, with a sunbeam shining directly in David’s eyes and apparently distracting him from remembering to GO HARD at the start of the race. He quickly fell off the back, but with a bit of encouragement from the DS on the sidelines, managed to bridge back up into the field by the end of the first lap. That effort burned all his matches, however, and he was gone within a half-lap, consigned to a solo TT effort the rest of the way. Charlie and Melissa lasted a few additional laps before slipping off into Chase 1 and Chase 2, respectively, leaving Dusty, Henry, Kevin, and Zinj in a group of around twenty in the front of the race. There was a solo attack off the front on lap seven, but Kevin and others reeled him in, and it was all together for the final sprint. Kevin and Dusty got stuck with lousy powerups (there were a lot of burritos in this race), but Zinj deployed his aero helmet to great effect and slid past Dusty and Kevin to take third overall and a spot on the podium. Kevin and Dusty each seemed to think the other rider finished in front of them, so I’m giving them a tie for sixth place.
In the C race, Michael stayed up front most of the way, until a handful of riders snuck away near the end, and ended up in 9th place.
We are going to run this season of the Monday night series for two more weeks, wrapping up on March 29. Once April rolls around, the Monday night Zwift series will go into hibernation until the cold weather returns next fall, and we’ll move outside and (finally!) resume the Tuesday night TT/HC series, which starts with the Short Time Trial in Whately/Hatfield on Tuesday April 6. The Tuesday night events are being staged as individual efforts, at least for the beginning of the season (ride whenever you want on race day and post your times), see full details here.
Results from Week Nine
- Zinj Guo (B) – 3 of 32 – 93.8 points
- Dusty King (B) – 5.5 of 32 – 85.9 points
- Kevin Weinman (B) – 5.5 of 32 – 85.9 points
- Michael Bello (C) – 9 of 30 – 73.3 points
- Henry van den Broek (B) – 12 of 32 – 65.6 points
- Charlie Bailey (B) – 22 of 32 – 34.4 points
- Melissa Warwick (B) – 26 of 32 – 24.1 points
- David Goodwin (B) – 32 of 32 – 3.1 points
Overall series standings after Week Nine
- Dusty King (9 races) – 753.4 points
- Zinj Guo (9 races) – 742.0 points
- Michael Bello (9 races) – 732.2 points
- Jonathan O’Keeffe (8 races) – 713.8 points
- Charlie Bailey (8 races) – 492.8 points
- Melissa Warwick (9 races) – 460.0 points
- Kevin Weinman (5 races) – 442.7 points
- Henry van den Broek (5 races) – 397.6 points
- Henry Weis (1 race) – 123.0 points
- David Goodwin (4 races) – 103.4 points
- Joe Lellman (1 race) – 88.2 points
