Kids Lake Park OKC cyclocross race #2

I decided not to do the race last weekend in Tulsa due to a lack of money to race with. The second Chandler Park race was on the 7th and the second OKC cross race was on the 8th. I chose to just do the OKC race at the Kids Lake Park and race in the masters class. The OKC course seems to be more of a road riders course as opposed to the last two races I've done which are more of a mountain bikers type course. The thing I like most about the local races is that I can ride my bike out to the course from my house and not have to load up a bunch of stuff in the car.

The day started out good with some super nice weather and got better when I was registering and found out I actually finished in the money at the race they had here a month ago.
The masters start 1 minute after the B race and as we were staging, I thought I had a pretty good chance to get a top 3 finish, but I wasn't real sure because there were a few guys in there that I'd never seen or raced with before.


The starts in the masters races are not quite as crazy and aggressive as the A races. I didn't necessarily want to get the holeshot, but it didn't seem like any one else wanted to either. I found myself leading after the first corner down the long sidewalk, so I just punched it to try to catch some guys off guard. By the time we got through the first technical section, the group was already broken apart and strung out. Eldon Harding and Jason Pratt passed me on the first set of barriers so I sat on and recovered.

By the time we finished our 1st lap, the 3 of us had a pretty good gap on the rest of the masters field and starting to pick off a few of the B riders. When we caught a group of 3 or 4 B riders midway through the second lap, I attacked and got away.

The B riders were pretty strung out so each time I would pass some, I would focus on the next ones ahead and try to catch them.

By the time there were 2 laps to go, I caught up to the 1st and 2nd place guys in the B race. We just rode together and finished like this. I felt pretty good the whole race and contemplated doing the A race, but decided to call it a day. The good news is the payout was better than I expected, so I should be able to do the race next weekend in Tulsa.