Pinellas Park Race Report

By Taylor Warren

Sunday was a good day to say the least. I was a little unsure about my decision to move up to Cat 3's after the race on Saturday but I did my best to put that behind me. First up was the Juniors race. It started out pretty fast like most Junior races do, but nothing too crazy. My teammate, Casey Braga, launched a pretty hard attack with Jake Hill and a couple of other riders bridged up. The pack went into chase mode and eventually caught the break. Once the break was caught, the pace slowed considerably, I took this opportunity to get off the front and was later bridged up to by a couple of others, including our very own Jay Major. The break stuck and I found myself outsprinting Ruben Delcristo for the win in Juniors 17-18. It was my very first road win. Enough of Juniors, more excitement followed in the Cat 3 race!!.

The Cat 3 race was crazy, about three times longer than the Junior race…in the middle of a storm. Water was everywhere and I did my best to stay in the top ten. Eventually the attacks started coming and I found myself in a four man breakaway. Props to Ian McGauvran and Jos Chalmers who blocked to make the break work but soon the break went from four riders to about twelve; even Jos was up there with me. Once the break had grown to that size the pace slowed a lot but not that many riders were working. With three laps to go a strong rider was off the front so Kyle Rohan and I attacked hard and bridged up to him. Now the pain really began, as the three of us were rotating at very high speeds as we pushed the pace to make our break succeed. I can’t thank Jos enough for blocking; the break probably wouldn’t have worked without him. With one lap to go I realized this was it, I was going to get top three no matter what. Through the pain, our group picked up the pace even more. Timing was definitely on my side, as Kyle Rohan was taking a hard pull at just the right moment. I waited then gave it my all to sprint around him at the line just barely besting him. My first wins back-to-back, what a feeling!! I can’t stress enough how much my team helped me, from blocking to cheering me on, I don’t think I could’ve done it alone.

Photo Credits to: Dean Warren