World Championships
It was an exciting week of racing for me. The first day of practice was good, but I had a bit of problem trying to figure out my gearing for the first straight. After looking at the gear chart and thinking about my strategy on when to shift, I made up my mind for day two or practice and qualifying.
The qualifier went well, coming 3rd behind Saldini and Prokop. Graves was fourth and we were all within about .3 seconds. I made a mistake in the qualifier that I know cost me some time, but I felt good and confident with my performance. Not a bad start to my 36th b-day.
Friday night was the race and I was ready. The weather was not great, but the rain held off for the most part. I was actually hoping for some rain as I thought it would have made the course better.
First round was a big one for Prokop. I am still not sure exactly what happend, but he was out. WOW! There was one of the main contenders gone just like that. Semis had some more excitement and drama. Semi one saw Graves go out with a mechanical. One turn from the finish and I heard from others that it looked like he came up a bit short on the quad and his tire blew out in the turn just after that. Saldini & Jurg ended up making it out of that race to the final. Semi 2 was my race. I felt confident, but straight out of the gate I pulled my foot out of my pedal, starting me off in 4th place. I quickly got my foot back in and charged to catch back up. I made quick work of third, putting a clean pass on the spanish rider, then setting my sites on second. I caught up pretty quick to second and when the Chec rider went a bit wide, I decided to make my move then and I made it stick. I was pretty fired up to make two good moves to give me a spot in the finals
With Saldini having lane choice in the final, I took lane two, right between him and Roger Rindernicht from Switzerland, while Jurg was in lane 4. I knew with a good start I could take them, but all these guys are great starters, so I needed a good one. When the gate dropped I got out pretty good. Roger and Sladini may have been a little bit in front of me right off the bat, but the way I had my gearing set up was that my 3rd, 4th, 5th pedal was when I would start pulling and that is what happend. I got a bit of a lead on Saldini & Roger, but Saldini had the inside and was not backing down. He charged all the way to turn one, which caused me to go more inside than I wanted as my line was not the best at the entrance. I made it through turn one clean and what I didn't know was that since Saldini had to finally back down and brake, he balled Roger & Jurg up. Those two crashed and I instantly had a 6 bike length lead. Once I got to the last turn I finally realized I had a big lead and I started the celebration.
I was super stoked to get the win in front of such a great crowd. It was also cool to have the usa team, my wife, and a bunch of other friends at the finish line to support me. What a feeling...
Thanks to all my sponsors, supporters, teammates, and mechanics for all your support...
Posted by paula on September 10, 2007 02:43 PM