Omaha CX Sunday

After having been laid up this past week with grain dust induced/aggravated cold and cough I decided to forgo the 1,2,3 race and just stay where I belonged, in the 3's. After a bit of warm up I did not feel to shabby, but the faces I saw at the start line made me realize that this was gonna be a real suffer fest. As the numbers were called at the start line I realized that I had my number pinned on the left side, while the official was going to be on the right. Made a mental note to call out my # every lap.
Whistle blows and we are off. Things quickly looked grim as Kaos rider Vaugh Pierce goes off the front with Mike Miles laying down the power, giving chase. That lasted about a half mile as Miles took a pretty good digger right in front of me and Jeff Bonsall. Jeff picked up the slack, and was making tracks with me in tow.
I looked back after a lap and we had a pretty good gap on the 2nd chase group. Jeff pulled another lap, and then let me take over for a bit. I came around and might have gone 100 yards before I ran into (literally) a downed rider that had fell off the pace. He tried to extricate himself asap, but I still managed to clip him. Bonsall came around.
It was at this point that I started to realize just how much better Jeff was in the corners than I was. He was putting seconds into me in the chicane sections, as my tires were squirming about (tire pressure was way to low).

I shamelessly jacked this image from Lucas Marshall's Gallery.
I managed to catch back up to take my pull for a few laps. With 2 to go we got caught by a Powerade rider that had been chasing hard the entire race. The Powerade dude was absolutely crushing the flat open sections, and that had Jeff and I worried. Jeff decided to make a break for it.

He came around and created a gap of at least 5 seconds as he just destroyed me and the Powerade rider with his cornering skills. At this point I had given up hope on 2nd place and was just gonna try to hold on for 3rd. However, once we hit the high point of the course I saw Bonsall, and managed to make the bridge back up to him. Not really sure what happened, but I imagine that he must have went down. I managed to slip by before we started the descent back to the volleyball sand pit.
If you have ever worked around Thoroughbred race horses you have seen the wild eyed, foam flecked sprinting that makes horse racing exciting.
That was what ensued for the last half lap.
I just tried to keep it laid down, knowing that we were going to sprint at the finish. Jeff stayed right on my wheel the whole time
Sprint, we did.
Managed to hold on to 2nd place by a wheel.
Good times. Lots of smiles were had by all.

Mod managed to come back after some disappointing mechanical problems the previous day. He rode away to take the Win on Sunday.