Maria's view from Mengoni 2007

Mengoni

The race stayed together until the 2nd lap when someone attacked and about 8 girls went.
Cecelia and Ashley were up in the break. I stayed with the second group content 2 Raddies were up the road. We had one large junior that didn't understand wheel overlap and was constantly swerving to avoid going down. He was scary and big, not a good combo.

Our third time up Harlem Hill I attacked. I wanted to get away from the scary juniors. Liz from TN and Reem from Advil came with me. We rotated a bit, Reem fell back and Liz and I kept it up for a while. She yelled at me do more work since I could TT better than her. She had to help if she wanted to be in the break with me. She wasn't pulling her fair share and we slowed down and the field caught us within a couple miles.

Our fourth time up the hill the men's field passed us. The moto didn't neutralize us and the field came around us fast on our right and on our left. It was a mess and extremely dangerous, we are fortunate that none of us went down. I then went to the front to get
away from some sketchiness and just took it slow since no one wanted to work. We got down by the carousal and our moto looked back and went down hard. Since I was up front, I was able to swerve left and avoid disaster. I screamed when I felt the wind from
the rider and moto brush my right leg. Too close. I didn't realize at the time, but Elena, went down in this fiasco. Sorry, Elena, had I known...I would have stopped to wait for the ambulance with you.

The final lap was uneventful and it seemed everyone was done racing. Between all the work I did and the close call with our pace moto, I just wanted to finish and be done. I wasn't even that tired, but mentally it was over. While we were setting up to sprint to the
finish, a moto pulled up next to us and told us to neutralize for the men's finish. As I pulled to the right, a few women passed me and one even bumped me to move forward. She apologized after, but it was ridiculous.

Congrats to Cecelia and Ashley! They took 5th and 8th. Awesome work ladies!!!