Rid River "Gash" Gorge

After driving 3.5 hours south to Stanton Kentucky to race in a collegiate crit to help promote Marian College to a bunch of juniors that are looking for schools that give scholarships, I discovered that only 3 people signed up to race that race. After talking to Mike Hanley and Dean I decided to race the Cat 3 crit as well in case they decided to cancel the Collegiate Crit. Mistake. After getting into a 10 man break about half way into the most technical crit I have ever seen I watched the guy in front of me go into a dtich and do a superman. Instead of doing the smart thing and letting someone else close the gap I decided to try and close it myself. Mistake. Went into the first turn too hard and the front wheel just went out from under me. After seeming dazed for a minute I came to the conclusion that the bike was in good enough shape to continue and so was I despite the blood (red river, I think that was where the race got its name) just pouring down my leg I took my free lap and got back in the race. Was doing fine until about the last lap my leg just started cramping up big time and I had no chance to sprint and I rode in safely to take 7th. After getting the leg and bike looked at I decided that I was still going to do the Collegiate Crit. Before the race all 4 of us decided that what ever money that was going to be won we would split it 4 ways. It came down to Francis (Midwestern State) and a Lees Mcrae guy and myself in the sprint which I found myself taking 3rd. I could blame it on my leg but down inside I know that I am not a sprinter or a climber and when you put those 2 elements together I did not think that losing by a tire width was not too bad. So after the race the promoter decided that since he had to do something with the money he would go ahead with the pay schedule and let us devide 500 dollars among 4 of us. For any one needing a calculator thats 125 dollars for racing a collegiate race. Not too shabby since the only thing you normally get at a collegaite race is points for a season total.