The Ride Sally Ride cat 4 crit was marred by a serious crash, involving Charlottesville’s own Jake King. I neither heard nor saw the crash, but it left Jake with severe facial lacerations and potentially a broken jaw. The accident happened fairly early in the race, and we went past the scene several times, until with 17 laps to go, a bell was ringing and the chief ref was shouting 1 lap to go; they had to bring an ambulance in for poor Jake…
The race started out well — I jumped across to what I thought was a dangerous break (with 2 NCVC guys in it. NCVC had something like 1/4 the 80 person field), and I was up the road when the crash happened. I was surprised at the effort it took to get across. I guess these MABRA races are harder. We were caught and I was recovering deep in the field when the surprise bell lap happened and was nowhere in position to sprint, so I rolled in.
But it gets better. When Jake had been taken care of, there was an announcement that we’d restart and that the person who won the sprint in the previous “race” was awarded only a prime. We were given 10 laps and sent on our way. Again, what I thought would be a dangerous break went and I killed it jumping across. But although we kept a gap for a few laps, there was no real cooperation and once again we were caught. My biggest mistake was letting myself drift too far back while recovering and not checking the lap card when we went back into the field. The result was that the bell came as a surprise to me (again), and I was woefully out of position. I managed to move up a bit, but could only manage 19th out of 80ish.
But I wasn’t too upset — all my thoughts were with young Jake. Here’s hoping he recovers quickly.