Thompson Grand Prix - Thompson, Connecticut

One of our newest team members, Brennan Tickell, took home the 3/4 win. Here is what he had to say about the race:

The course at Thompson is super interesting, because it's an auto track everything is really wide and none of the turns are especially technical. After a couple twists up a false flat there was a long fast downhill straightaway preceding the tightest point on the course, a fast S turn, that led into a sweeping 180° left turn back to the line to complete the 2.6 km course.

Dan and I were racing as a two man team, and there were a few teams with 6+ people. Our game plan entering the race was to do as little work as possible in the bunch, cover any moves that had larger team representation, but ultimately hope that the field would stay together for a bunch sprint to lead Dan out for.

Straight from the gun the field was a little frantic, there was tons of room to move up and the lack of technicality kept the pace fast so essentially the entire group was in the washing machine fighting for position. After a couple laps a group of 3 unattached riders went off the front, and they stayed ~15 seconds up the road for 15 minutes or so until they shelled themselves and were brought back. A counterattack of a different 3 riders went off the front, and Minuteman Road Club had a man in the move. MRC did a great job disrupting the chase effort, and, despite having 8 men in the field and nobody in the break, New Haven Angels refused to do any work to bring the group back. After 10-15 minutes of getting close but ultimately having the chase get shut down I decided to bridge and went hard solo across to the group of 3. Once I made the break and Dan was helping to slow down the bunch we were able to extend the gap to over 30 seconds and it was pretty clear that we were going to stay away.

With a lap to go the games started and I ended up on the front at the tail end of the back straightaway with nobody willing to come through. After sitting up and looking around at each other through the S turn I attacked the other 3 with about 500m to go, they weren't able to match my acceleration, and I got separation and posted up for the win. Dan took the field sprint behind me for 6th, but first from the bunch.

Although the race didn't play out exactly like we had prepared for, we both were able to execute our strengths and got solid results!