Is there something in the water?

Jesus Pete! Tonight was a good old fashioned NASCAR short-track free for all. More on that in a moment...

The crit went off, as usual, with a very large group that included several new faces. A lot of these new faces are strong, but have ZERO handling skills in the pack. Holding a line seems to be a foreign idea to a lot of them. Inside/out or outside/in through the turns was the M.O. for most of them. One noob swung way outside and put Osama into the curb, and thus, ass over elbow into the grass. Thankfully, he went down in the grass and only his jersey was any worse for wear. Osama jumped back in after taking his free lap and was fine. That was the first incident...
The crit itself started off with a shot from PMC and a select group who chose to make a break on lap one. The group chased for the next five laps or so, with very few of us actually doing any of the work. I did a lot of chasing for 15 minutes and paid retail for it for the next 20. The wind was a factor tonight as well. A strong west wind was blowing up the backstretch, making the chase that much more difficult. More breaks went and came back through the first 40 minutes. The group was back, en masse, at 42 minutes and then the second incident of the evening occured. Another noob decided he wanted to move right. Unfortunately, Jay Charles was occupying that space. Jay came over on me, quickly, and we met carbon to carbon, and I'm not talking about carbon-based life-forms. His carbon r/d went directly into my front Carbone. The impact sheared his r/d off with surgical precision. It also rendered my front wheel into a shape resembling a Frito-Lay product. I shot dead right and into our own, local, national champion Jed. Fortunately, the three of us that all met in the middle are experienced enough to handle some contact and no one went to the tarmac. Thank God, b/c eating pavement at 25+ sucks. I did lose a chunk out of my right ankle from Jed's bike though...

Parts can be replaced/repaired...road rash scars last a long time. I guess I'll be making a trip to see Shrews tomorrow...

The Harrell's boys battled it out for the win. I couldn't really tell, but I think Jamie may have gotten the win.