Stop #4 - Greenwood

April 3, 2007
Greenwood, South Carolina
by Catherine Powers

It seems like only yesterday that we were racing in Walterboro. Oh yea, that’s because we were! South Carolina is beginning to blend together in a blur of hotel rooms, hot steamy morning rides, long drives and late afternoon racing …

Today we rode over to the race course and headed straight to the coffee shop for some pre-race caffeine. After a good warm-up we lined up and were treated to the national anthem sung by a local high school beauty queen. And then we were off.

The race didn’t have the blistering pace of some of the other crits of the series, but a good hill, a chicane and some wind kept it hard and did some damage to the back of our dwindling field. Kat and Sarah patrolled the front and won some premes in the first part of the race while Powers and Michelle struggled to wake up their legs. By mid-race, Powers was feeling the beast – covering moves, attacking and snatching up a preme. The attacks started coming fast and furious and Kat and Powers covered and countered as best they could. In the end, the right group never formed off the front and it was clear it was coming down to a field sprint.

With 1 to go, Powers snagged the gambler’s preme and then kept the pace high through the chicane on the back side of the course. The Cheerwine train came barreling by with 2 corners to go with Sarah in tow. Last minute shenanigans by another sprinter, however, left Sarah fighting to close a gap to the sprinters ahead. Sarah and Kat ended up finishing 7th and 12th but stayed upright to fight another day – tomorrow, in fact!