Last Race weekend!!!!

The Marion Classic was my last big race of 2009 and the start of my last race weekend in the US for a long time. The course was awesome and had 10 corners in less than a mile. I was hoping to pull a top 10 finish in this race but the field was pretty stacked with lots of solid pro teams showing up. The race was pretty fast from but not nearly as hard as I expected. The number of corners kept the speed down and made it really hard to move up unless you were willing to cut inside of everyone. I was sitting in the top 20 most of the race and even went with a few moves. I expected it to come down to a field sprint but one guy got away solo and then when I was sitting in the top 10 with about 5 laps to go a Kelly guy crashed hard and let 4 more guys slip off the front. Ryan and I were up there for the sprint. He placed 11th and I was 19th. I should have tried harder to move up with 2 or 3 laps to go but I am still pretty happy with how I race especially considering the strength of the field. I really enjoyed the race and I hope it continues to grow and continue to bring fast guys to race in Indiana.
Sunday was a criterium not far from my parents house in Carmel, IN. Originally we had not planned to do it but because it was so close we figured we might as well. A pretty good field showed up for a small crit with Aerocat and TX road house bringing big squads. The course had a few good turns but most of them were gradual. The race was super aggressive and fast from the gun. Andy, Chris, Greg and I were all attacking a lot. Greg got off in a move with one guy from each team but halfway through the race he got dropped! So we started attacking and hoping to get someone off. With 3 to go Chris managed to get away and Andy and I sprinted. Andy got 14th and Chris was 6th. I got 18th. It was a fun race and I am definitely glad I will be getting a break from racing for a while.