The Brick City Criterium was earlier today; still sore from yesterday but I was ready to roll. It had the largest payout of any 3's race I had ever done; $1000, 10 places deep! Every spot down to 5th was guaranteed at least $100, let's go!!! So when I first arrived to Sanford, 2 guys I ride with back home approached me and wanted to know if I was willing to have them work for me and then split the winnings; I was down with that. So they told me to sit in the field the whole race and they would chase anything down that got away; my only duty was to stay in the field, stay safe, and get to the front with 5 to go. So the race stayed together most of the time but ultimately no one got away; so it was going to come down to a field sprint. So with 5 to go, I started moving up and found the wheel of my lead-out man, Michael Ventola. He did everything he could to keep me positioned at the front and did an awesome job. Even if we got pushed back into the field, by the time we came out of the next corner, I was back near the front. On the last lap, someone tried to take a flyer so we had to follow him. Going into turn 1, I was 5th wheel and the field flooded the front. Momentarily I was split from Ventola's wheel, there was about a 5 meter gap between us coming out of turn 2. I bridged that down the back stretch and got back to his wheel. Going into 3, the rider he was following cut him off which caused me to have to touch my brakes so another small gap opened but when I stood up I threw my real wheel but was able to control it and get ready for the sprint. I had to open my sprint coming out of turn 4. The 2 guys in front of Ventola had a gap that I was unable to close. I had a great race but just couldn't close the door. So I finished 3rd overall and won $125. Because of the work Ventola and his teammate did, which I was thoroughly grateful for, I split the money with them. I took 60 and they split the $65 between the 2 of them!
Once again, this has been a great weekend and couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement from my friends and teammates.
Thanks,
Richard Kirby, Michael Ventola, and Mike Julio!
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