Race Report: 2025 Dash for Cash - Men’s Cat 2/3

Race: 2025 Dash for Cash - Men’s Cat 2/3

Date: May 31, 2025

AVRT Racers: Kevin Kauffman

Best Finish: Kevin Kauffman - 22/44

Course Description: A straightforward flat 4 corner office park crit. The roads were pretty wide which leaves a lot of space for bunches through the turns, with curb cuts at most (all?) of them minimizing pedal clip concerns. A very slight chicane going into corner 3 makes the back half of the course the most dynamic and the clearest spot to get set up going into turn 4. There were cash primes for just about every lap of the race, incentivising some fun dynamics and early separations. Somewhere around 26 laps of this makes up the 50min crit. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14654602603 

Nutrition: Simple oatmeal and yoghurt breakfast at home, half a bottle of cold hydration mix at the start.. ~40g carb mix during the race.

Recap:

This was my first time racing this course so I was all ears for advice going in. A lot of horror stories from this race set my strategy to avoid the middle of the pack at all times as it can get pretty clumped up and dicey through the turns. The race before ours ended with a pile up on the last corner (rumored a clipped pedal?) and resulted in a couple broken collarbones. It was also pretty warm and I haven’t been training much in the heat so without any teammates, I didn’t plan to work to close any gaps if any represented teams weren’t in the break. 

The race started pretty tame, and sure enough the group stayed packed. Even once the prime laps started, the group never really strung out and the washing machine started churning. I kept around the back third of the group until I could tell people started getting antsy so I started to move up. People tended to surge the most after attacks past the first turn and chased back between the second and third turns. About ~8 laps to go, a successful breakaway formed with riders represented from Terun, TMB Devo, and a few unattached, but not including anyone from Team California, and a few other better represented teams. I decided it would be good to work rotations in the pack and get those remaining teams working to close it back up.

At this point, I kept in the first 10 wheels in the chase as we took disorganized pulls toward the attack. Up until about 4 laps to go, our half hearted efforts clearly weren’t going to close the gap especially with Terun and TMB folks sitting in. In the end I guess I didn’t want it enough and let it happen, watching the gap go and sat in for a mild bunch sprint. Covered a few wheels at the line for 22/44, solidly mid pack finish.