Super Week...Super Late

Yeah, ok sorry for this late post on the superweek race. I was on vacation and thought I would get a chance to post there, no luck. So last Tuesday before heading to Alaska Cory G. and I headed over to Burlington for a superweek road race. I drove through rain most of the way there and while waiting to register got wet a couple times. I like the cooler wet days so I was looking forward to the race. Of course the race started late and as we were riding around the parking lot to stay loose Cory flatted. We got that fixed just in time to line up.

The first 2 miles were a controlled lead out. About 1 mile into that I flatted. The sag car pulled up and I threw on a back up wheel. When I crested the hill I seen the entire pack just sitting there looking around, apparently the pace car got lost. I started to wonder if this was a sign of things to come.
We had a really big pack so I wanted to stay up front till people got used to riding together, good thing too. Half way through the first of four laps somebody came into the side of my rear tire. They were laying on my tire hard trying to get there balance and I was hanging on trying not to touch Cory's wheel in front of me. Next thing I heard was scraping and crashing I looked back and seen the biggest pile-up I have ever seen!! One guys bike was flying through the air, over people, and into the ditch! We sat up for a second to realize what happened, the crash took out about half the field. The rest of the race was somewhat uneventful. I think people were a little gun shy to try anything too crazy after seen the crash. As we were finishing the last lap and turning back the finishing area the skis opened up. One guy got pushed off the road and went down, I got myself positioned so I would have a shot in the sprint. There was a gradual climb cresting about 200 meters from the finish. We sprinted up the hill and when I seen how much further we had my legs began to burn. I kept the power on as hard as I could and threw the bike across the line...this is when things got bad! When I looked up I seen that they had moved the barriers onto the finish and wanted us to sprint then turn instead of finishing straight. The guy next to me tried to turn but hit the guy next to him, they went down hard. I had no were to go and hit the barrier HARD. Two other guys also crashed trying to avoid bike and people. When I got up I was happy to see that I could walk ok, no broken bones, but I was missing quite a bit of skin. The bike also took it kinda hard, bars tape ripped, shifters scratched, down tube scratched and dented, and small ring bent!
I guess it was kinda a high price to pay for a 4th place finish. Oh-well that's racing!!