The Tilles Report.....

Well, first off, what's up with this f@#$!@$ weather??? What had been clear skies and warm weather the weekend before turned into cold, dreary, windy fall-like weather this weekend. The plan in the a.m. was to do both races, the 3/4 in the morning, go home for a bite to eat and then head back for the P1, 2, 3 race in the afternoon. Let me just say that when I got home and laid in front of the tv for a few minutes there was no prying me off of that damn couch, especially since I was going to have to pull an all nighter at work that evening. I did manage to get off the couch for a few minutes to get some McD's ice cream cones..............about the time I should've been lining it up for the P1, 2, 3's race. So, needless to say, I only made it for the 3/4 race.

As for the race, it went pretty good. We had five guys in the race and we did a lot of work at the front mixing things up a bit. I even had a scary moment, not so much for me, but the guy behind me when we attacked and put a little gap on the field. We were about 40 meters off the front and I turned around to see what kind of damage we had done and the next thing I know is I feel and hear that dreaded wheel touch. Yeah, the gateway guy behind me had been on my wheel and apparently we both looked back to assess the situation and when I turned back around he must've still been looking back and drifted right into my rear wheel. I was just waiting to hear that unique noise a bike makes when hitting pavement at 25mph. I looked back once again to see him off to the left in the grass outside the barrier. The guy saved it, I gotta give my hats off to him as that was propably no easy task and propably had to change his bike shorts after that one. I was told later that he rode alongside the group in the grass and got back on. After playing at the front for a little longer, unsuccessfully chasing down a prem, I decided to ease back on the throttles and just take what I had left to the finish. Well, that was a mistake. In doing so I ended up losing positions and then had to try and make my way to the front again on the final laps. This was no easy task to do on this narrow course. Everybody was jammed at the front and there was nowhere to go. The field never did string out. All I heard from everyone after the race was how they got boxed in. I won't let that happen again......right. Forutneately, I didn't have a guy totally uncontest the final sprint and sit up in front of me like Denny did. I was able to weave and pick my way back through the front pack for a top 20 finish, I think I was 18th or 20th as they didn't have me scored, but there were two unidentified riders in those positions so I'm claiming one of them!!!

It was a fun, hardfought race. Denny, Casey, and myself, toyed at the front at times to make things interesting, cover a few attacks, put on a few attacks. Basically for me and Denny, did a lot of work for nothing other then get in a great workout. In fact a couple times Casey took off and I just said to myself "he's going to burn himself out." Well, I was wrong, young grasshopper still had enough in the tank to get an awesome second place finish in the sprint. Mr. Consistency Sven got eighth, and Matt was up there too. Great finishes for everyone and a good race for Dogfish as a whole. I talked to Casey later to find out he also took 9th in the P1,2,3 race. Casey's been on a roll here lately. He's had some good results and the seasons just begun. I'm gonna have to start charging him for gas now that he's bringing home some greenbacks for his results.

Up next is Hermann, hopefully there will be some sunny skies to debut my new team frame.