I'm the lone dissenting voice about the Evanston course. I actually love it. I find it easy to move up in the turns, and easy to conserve energy. I feel bad saying that considering so many people have crashed here, but the crashes seem to be from bad, bad riding rather than course design. Last year I hadn't ridden for six weeks before hopping in the P-1-2 race and making it about 40 miles. This year I was determined to finish.
Somewhere around 25 miles into the race, the pack really slowed down along the normally blazing stretch between turn 4 and turn 5. I figured this was a dangerous situation and was alert. Sure enough, about two riders up and five riders to the right of me, riders made contact and took down like ten guys. The crash was to my right, but I was able to hold my line through the turn and avoid that. Then, unrelated to the main crash, a guy on my left side was climbing all over me for some reason, and that caused me to topple gently over. I took a free lap and got right back in.
Halfway through the race, a bad crash into turn 4 neutralized the race. I got some water and generally putzed around, but knew the restart would be hard on the legs. Sure enough, the race started again and I was put in the hurt box right away. I hung on for another twenty laps or so, and then guys ahead of me started gapping off. I closed a few gaps, but soon found myself about 100 meters off the back. Then I did something I've never done in any criterium at any level after being dropped: I chased back on. I couldn't believe I actually made it back into the field. I recovered, but the effort took a lot out of me.
With eight laps to go, I got gapped off again. Again, I drilled it as hard as I could for the next lap to try and catch up. Fueled by primes, guys at the front were drilling it. I didn't give up. Then, the cornerworkers warned me of a crash up ahead, and I heard the announcer say they were stopping the race again. I was too exhausted to rejoice at my amazing luck. For the third time I was back in the field. During the break the officials debated what to do about the combination of the restart, many remaining primes, and only 6 laps. I went over to the two officials who were at the start line. I suggested they have us do a few neutral laps before ramping it up for the last six. The officials, in their usual USAC professional manner, laughed at me. Restarts happen all the time, and neutral laps are very common ways to do it, so I didn't get what was so funny. A few other riders suggested the same thing, and I told them about my lobbying attempt. They were as baffled by the officials' reaction as I was. But whatever. We would do four extra laps for real for a total of ten remaining. I hung on to the tail end of the field, and came in at the very end of the pack.
I know the rest of the team finished up there in the action somewhere, save for Andy whose bike was immobilized in a crash. You'll have to ask them about their race, since I was nowhere near them. I hope the victims of the earlier crashes heal up soon. Thanks to Evanston and Turin for putting on this race, and thanks very much to the medical team for their hard work.