Hells Kitchen report

So today was my first race of the season. Me and Christy got up a 5:15 and left the house at 6:00, made it to Hogeye in about 2.5 hours. I saw Joey, Jason Ward, Roger, Curt, and Curtis a junior that rides for OCC. I was talking to Jason and he told me that he would be riding in my group because he had to buy a one day license and you can only buy a one day for CAT5. He said he would help me out as much as he could. I have a hard enough time staying on that guys wheel in training rides. The first climb was easy peasy, and I was feeling good. I was able to stay on Jason's wheel most of the race. We then got to the Hell's Kitchen climb a guy past me on the right so I started to hammer it up the easy part. Then I got to the steep part and was struggling a little bit. When I reached the top there was a guy alone and a group of three in front of me. I caught the guy that was alone and tried to work with him to catch the three ahead of us, but he wasn't havin it. So I decided to try and TT up to the group. I was doing 33mph on a flat to try and catch them. I eventually caught up to them with a mile to go. You could tell they were a bit pissed to see me. They were running a paceline when I got on one of their wheels I said "on your left" to the guy on my right, and I could feel the hatred in the air. Then I ended up right next to the guy in the front of the paceline right before the finish. I felt I had enough speed to start sprinting a little further out than I would normally go. So I went, and one of them latched onto my wheel and the other two were trying very hard. The guy on the right was able to beat me but the other two were not. I think I did the right thing because if I had waited any longer I think all of them may have beat me. I think I finished between 12th and 20th. I hate not knowing. Congratulations to Jason Ward on his second place finish. Curt also finished first in the masters. Way to go Curt, and Jason!