Winter Shart Tarck Series '21: Race Four... When Will It Rain?

Wake up... is it Sunday?

Look out the window at the water flowing down the driveway...

Yeth, it must be Sunday.

Grab all the things I laid out the day before, many of the items having been hosed out in the driveway only 164 hours ago.  Shove them in my messenger bag and wait for Dr Mike.

It's either drizzling while were getting dressed or bout to.  This is the way things have been for... when was the last time we saw the sun?

Oh yeth, that short period of time about 162 hours ago.

I'd asked Dr Mike on the drive over if I should be a "smarter racer."  Taking a solo flyer from the start and trying to hold it means never enjoying a draft on the open road sections.  I know the answer.  I just need to hear it from someone else.

Sigh.  I wonder how this might work out.

Minutes before the start, I take off my tiny hat and have Dr Mike shove it in my jersey pocket.  That will make the difference...

Until 1.5 minutes before the start and I realize that I need to take off my nitrile gloves that are under my HandUp gloves in the most panicked manner... because that will make all the difference.

Off at the start, and Shawn is pushing his big gear again.  I guess I'll drop in on his wheel... when I can hold onto it... which I can't really do when the road's going down.  Climb back up the start, and we're now a second apart.  Lap two and I hold his wheel better, but find out that the mud thrown up from his back wheel is gonna cover my glasses if I do this the whole time.  Get a little gap on Shawn, but by the end of lap three, we're back to one second and my lenses are getting crusted like popcorn shrimp.

Lap four and some guy comes around us... whodafuck?

Is this the guy from week one with the de-batteried AXS gorilla?  I can't tell.  We're all covered in mud from the back.  I decide now is better than never.

Ending lap four, throw my jacket off over the fencing...

photo cred: Supercycling

look over my shoulder, see that I've built a gap...

"TWO TO GO, RACERS.  TWO TO GO."

Huh?  That would make six laps instead of seven like last week.  Are we going that much slower?

Time to allow that Ford VS Ferrari thing go through my head.

"There's a point at 7,000 RPM... where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. And all that's left is a body moving through space and time. 7,000 RPM. That's where you meet it. You feel it coming. It creeps up on you, close in your ear. Asks you a question. The only question that matters. Who are you?"

I know I can go all out for ten minutes... so I do... for five minutes and one second... and as I pass by the announcer for the last time...

"TWO TO GO, RACERS.  TWO TO GO."

Huh?  Fuck all.  Guess they made a mistake with the count on that last lap.  So did I then... I guess.

Take a quick look back when I get a chance, and it looks like although that effort I made put a gap between Shawn and I, it looks like he's in a wheel-to-wheel battle for second.  So now the question is, will they get caught up in some cat and mouse game or are they gonna push each other the whole way to the finish?

And am I stupid enough to let off the gas and accidentally find out.  Back it down to 6,500 RPMs... keep looking over my shoulder... try to maintain the gap...

And in the end, win... but Shawn did manage to put down his second sub-five minute lap on his last hard dig to secure second place.

One to go.  Forty more minutes of bleeding out of my eyes to go.