Race Report: 2025 Sand City Criterium - Men’s E3/4 + Men’s E2/3

Race: 2025 Sand City Criterium - Men’s E3/4 + Men’s E2/3 

Date: Sunday, July 27, 2025

AVRT Racers: Drew Matthews, Kevin Kauffman

Best Finish: Kevin Kauffman 24/37 in E3/4, both DNP in E2/3

Course Description: A fast, short, ~1km course of pretty good quality pavement and 10 corners, a few of which could be linked together. One led to a short climb as the main feature and a fun S-weave into the finish sprint. There were some curb hazards in a few areas that were well marked and called out by officials, but that doesn't mean everyone successfully avoids them (foreshadowing). 

Strava: https://strava.com/activities/15257610920 + https://strava.com/activities/15258090374 

Nutrition: Banana, cold brew coffee, and a half a bottle of carb mix at the start.. ~50g carb mix during each race and in between.

E3/4 Recap:

The race started off with a conservative pace, sans one kid who must have taken the officials first-corner warning as a challenge and, as foreshadowed, the corner was not cleared and we saw his bike take a couple flips through the air. Ok - looks like this will be a race requiring my best cornering competencies! Drew and I spent the bulk of the race in the back third, watching to make sure there were no splits so I could take cleaner lines especially as I planned on doing the E2/3 race next and wanted to keep surges to a minimum. 

After a few laps of familiarization, the course ended up being a lot of fun. I found positions to be the easiest to make up on the climb feature and immediately over the top of it as the pace was slowest here. With 5 to go, I made some good moves in that location and was able to find an acceptable position for the finale. On the bell, I rode the wind coverage with a plan to hammer up that final climb but my plans were promptly thwarted as I got caught in a pileup at the bottom of the hill, long after free lap opportunities. I stayed upright but that ended my race. Pretty disappointing as I felt quite good at the end but that’s just how racing goes. 

E2/3 Recap:

Started in the back third since it worked in the prior race but this one ended up being a lot more surgey than the 3/4. This led to a lot of small gaps very regularly along the lap in no common location. After covering a few and surfing wheels I got gapped with nobody to come around and close it. Looking behind me, I saw there were only 3 others with me with the rest of the field out of sight. Spent three laps mostly pulling for us stragglers and burning through the matches I had left. Had the pleasure of hearing our increasing gap read out by the announcer for another few laps until we finally got pulled. 

Drew and Kevin on the back side of the course in the E2/3 race