This was the last night of the 4 day Heritage Tour of western South Carolina held in Aiken which is
50 miles east of Columbia. I have been looking forward to this race for several days now, not
because of the race itself, but because it means that I was only 1 day from my second favorite race
of the year, The Shelby Crit. Shelby is by far my favorite race of the spring and has been for over
5 years now. I have never finished better than 8th at Shelby, but this year may just be my year.
(FYI, Crit Nationals at Downers Grove(Chicago) is my favorite race.)
How it happened, well the version as my eyes saw it. I wanted to sit this race out and rest up for
Shelby but $10,000 in prize money is hard to say no to. I did however vow to not make any attacks
and just follow wheels all night. This is where best laid plans go awry. I started in the very back
and stayed there for the first few laps but I like to race and within 15 laps I was near the front.
This is where it gets confusing, attacks were going non stop and I just sat there and bided my time
by only going with big groups. Then it started to rain, not a downpour but it was raining and the
roads got very slick. Soon enough I found myself in one group of 17 riders that got a very good gap.
This was the final break of the race.
This group attacked numerous times and soon a break of 4 riders went clear. I had really good legs
and decided to wait a lap and go across. It took me a little over a lap to bridge the gap and soon
enough I found myself in a 5 man break with Vogels(Navigators) Wohlberg(Saturn) Meza(Schroeder Iron)
Pate(Prime Alliance) and myself Waddell(Mathis). This group worked really well together for over 15
laps and extended our gap to the chasers, except Pate was sitting on because by his own admission
was by far the slowest finisher in the group. It stopped raining around this point.
We maintained a good gap the other 12 man group until about 15 laps to go when a group of 5 joined
us from behind containing Horner(Saturn),Papp(UPMC), a Shroeder Iron dude, Larkin(Ofoto) and some
other guy I didn't know. This really upset the group and what once was a smooth working group became
an attack fest.
Horner and Vogels are on a completely different level in a situation like this, those two guys
attacked us and we never saw them again. I really wanted to have a chance to win tonight after I
made the break, but with this only being my 4th pro level race of the year sometimes you have to
admit defeat. I didn't give up, but in situations like this I have to be realistic.
For those that don't know me I have a FULL-TIME job just like you readers do, I own my house, I have
a yard to mow, and I also direct and co-manage the Mathis Brothers team. It is at times like this in
the race that I think to myself what it would be like to RIDE full-time and not have to get up at
5am EVERY morning to go to work. But I digress and we have 10 laps left to race...
After those two checked out it was attack, attack, attack and I was trying my best to do as little
as possible to save energy for tommorrows race. Wohlberg and a Shroeder guy got away with 6 or so
laps to go and the rest of us just kept attacking each other.
With 3 laps to go it started raining again, and for those that don't know, light rain, completely
dark corners(it was after 9 pm by now) and being very tired makes for slippery bike handling. I
guess I just had too much pressure in my tires because my bike was all over the place on those last
three laps. I decided to just ride it in and see what happened in the sprint, Meza bombed the last
turn with that other guy on his wheel and won the sprint for 5th. I decided that risking life and
limb on wet roads for 5th wasn't worth my skin or broken bones when Shelby is tommorrow. I was 7th
for the night and very satisfied.
I hope you have enjoyed reading these reports, there is two more nights of racing with Shelby and
Roswell,Ga.
Thanks for reading, Jason Waddell Mathis Brothers Elite Team