The Wheelsucker at Dawg Days

The wheelsucker had missed the Dawg Days circuit race last year, and wanted to give it a try this year. So despite having raced Church Creek on Saturday, the wheelsucker was on the start line Sunday for the Masters 45+/55+ race.

Phil Hepburn attacked from the whistle; through the first chicane the wheelsucker was pushing rather over 500 watts to stay on. The pace stayed high to past the next turn, but the leaders slowed right down when they started up the shallow climb into the wind. The wheelsucker rode past a few riders, found a spot in the pack he liked and sat in.

On the very next lap the wheelsucker happened to look down and noticed that his rear tire was almost flat.

Local circuit races have always felt like non-technical crits to the wheelsucker, but there are several key differences, and in this case the game-changing difference is that there is no free lap and no wheel pit. There is the option of fixing whatever is wrong and chasing, but given that the wheelsucker needed to change to a new tube, this was only a theoretical option.

So less than two laps into the race the wheelsucker sat up, wished his competitors a good race, and soft pedaled back to his car. The tire was not quite flat, but rather close. A quick tube change later (using a borrowed pump as his was not working properly) the wheelsucker was back in business and wondering if he should jump into another race.

After some consideration and encouragement from others, the wheelsucker rolled out for the cat 3/4 35+ race. The wheelsucker was not feeling fresh as he had worked hard the day before at Church Creek, so just sat in, covered moves when he thought he should and did very little work. The wheelsucker was able to watch some of the best 35+ 3/4 racers like Mike Birner, Andreas Gutzeit, Eric Boone and a Bike Doctor rider, and tried to only go when one or more of them went. Some of his harder efforts were just moving up on the climb into the wind; an easy place to move up if you were willing to push big watts, as everyone else would tuck in close to the rider in front, and the field would be almost single file. A single rider rode off the front and stayed away for quite a while, but the wheelsucker decided to let others panic and work to bring it back. If Eric, Mike and Andreas were not at the front driving a chase, the wheelsucker was not going to be either. He did rotate to the front once or twice and take short hard pulls, after Andreas did a few.

The lone rider was brought back shortly before the start of the last lap, on the curve at the top of the climb. The wheelsucker saw Eric Boone open a small gap on the climb, jumped to get to him and went by encouraging Eric to come with him. Seconds later they were at the top of the climb and the wheelsucker had caught the lone rider, but Eric had sat up, and the wheelsucker was not willing to try to go by himself for 1.3 laps, so he sat up and waited for the field.

The pace rose on the last lap but the wheelsucker was able to hold wheels and get through the last turn in the top ten. He was merely hoping to follow good wheels and hope for the best, and it sort of worked. The wheelsucker had to brake inside 50 meters when a rider slightly ahead and overlapped on his left swerved over to the right, but the wheelsucker held on for 8th place.

The wheelsucker cooled off, rolled back to his car, and noticed that both tires were not that hard. In fact he had 80 psi in the front and less than 60 psi in the rear. So the wheelsucker borrowed another pump and pumped up his tires, thinking the first pump had been mis-calibrated.

Emboldened by getting a result, the wheelsucker talked himself into doing the 123 race. This had a rather larger field, and was clearly going to be a faster and much harder race. But the wheelsucker started near the back and was able to move his way up to about mid pack, and generally stayed between the middle point and two-thirds of the way back. There were lots of attacks at the front but nothing got away. The wheelsucker was seeing 32 mph when he dared to check, and was just sitting in the pack and was able to hang on.

With about 25 laps to go, it started raining very hard. A few laps later the wheelsucker had a scare when his rear wheel slipped out on a corner. It was not a sharp corner and the wheelsucker recovered easily but decided it was too slippery to continue. So he dropped out with the placard showing 21 laps to go. When he rolled back to his car he noticed that the rear wheel was low on pressure AGAIN! So the second tube had a slow leak, too!

The wheelsucker's cat 123 race lasted about 30 minutes, and he averaged 28.2 mph. Average power was 234 watts, rather below the wheelsucker's threshold, but the wheelsucker went over 600 watts 25 times in those 30 minutes.

So the wheelsucker started 3 races, and only finished 1, but had fun.

The 123 race was shortened as a storm cell with lightning was in the area; it went from 14 laps remaining to last 2 laps.

The wheelsucker is thinking he may have to try this 123 racing again if he can find another easy course where he can sit in.

It is not clear what would have happened if the wheelsucker had tried to move up and actually DO something.....