Crashed out

Road race season got off to a tough, nearly-tragic start this morning in Monterey when I crashed out of the Central Coast Circuit Race in the second lap.

Things started off so well too. Lorri and I had gotten there early, I got a solid warm-up in, and lined up with the other 5s at 8:30 with good positioning. At the whistle, the pack organized itself with big presence from Navy Postgraduate School team, SuperFred Andrew, and a few of us SJBCers. One of our SJBC juniors took two flyers off the front, which I had to admire but had no desire to follow. I felt good and stayed towards the front, taking turns when I had to but getting good recovery in, while following strong moves by a FORM Fitness rider and a Pen Velo guy. By the third lap, I could see a lot of the riders were tiring. The pack size had dwindled and at one point I was pedaling easily alone off the front. I sat up and called back, “WTF guys c’mon!” They did eventually move up and I downshifted to match pace, then slotted back in to my 5th wheel position.

At the last long roller before the descent, I found myself behind a slow Navy guy’s wheel (in fact all the burly Navy bros had faded by this point) and saw others start to stream past his left. I couldn’t wedge in and didn’t want to lose more position so I moved around his right. This left me on the right side of the road at the top of the climb with a group of about ten riders, probably the furthest back I’d been the whole race. The descent came fast. Guys to my left started drifting right but I was boxed in and got squeezed off the right edge of the pavement and lost control as I slid out in the gravel. I smacked my shoulder on the road edge and slid a little in the gravel. I unclipped and hollered, first for help then with a string of oscenities both loud and unoriginal, so I won’t bother transcribing them here.

I lay there hurting for a bit and then the race first aid vehicles arrived. There was a jeep with flashers (maybe a park vehicle?) driven by a man I didn’t see and a BMW X5 with the primary EMT. She helped me out and got me into the passenger seat, and I commented that she should move her vehicle off the race course. It seemed obvious that we were posing a hazard at the bottom of a steep hill with racers still on the course. I sat there for a couple minutes while they tried to stow my bike, and then the nightmare came to life.

The Cat4 pack came whistling down the hill amid shouts of “slow! slow!” Riders started hitting the ground and I heard at least one awful impact as someone smacked into the back of the vehicle I was sitting in. There were guys moaning in pain and trying to untangle themselves from their bikes and fellow riders, in short - carnage. The race EMT ineffectually shouted, “Call 911!” to the other people. She seemed completely freaked out. Then the Cat5s came around again and they still hadn’t neutralized the race. Andrew got bumped into the vehicle I was in as he tried to slow everyone down because there was still a downed rider in the middle of the road. I called out to him and asked him to go find Lorri at the top of the hill and tell her I’d crashed. A guy who clearly had medical training took charge of the worst-injured rider (also named Eric) and got him back-boarded and loaded into the BMW. Eric sounded bad and there was at least one other severely hurt rider behind me (who was probably Jonathan K-T) plus two guys up the road in front of me who looked shaken and scraped but not dire. At that point actual paramedics and fire trucks arrived. I sat there shaking from shock as I heard them trying to deal with the critical cases around me. Eventually they got the other riders triaged: a guy with minor injuries and I were loaded into a third ambulance. The rest of the day in ER was just pain and waiting.

I’m so messed up over this. I heard Jon was helicoptered from the site and I just hope that he’s okay. I can’t understand why race officials didn’t neutralize the top of that hill as soon as one of their vehicles was on the actual race course. I can’t help feeling guilty for being first down and setting this chain of events in motion, even though I kno intellectually I wasn’t responsible for the.

But most of all I want to heal up and get back out there.