Sorry for the delay on the race report but I lost internet access after posting my results.
Anyway, yes Davis is in very good form right now at over 72 fitness so I used him as my main guy at the race. I supported him with alot of the younger or less talented riders like Phinney, Swindlehurst, Pate, Paulinho, Murn, and Egoi. Although I did give him Vaitkus as a lead out man.
Race Recap:
As all of you know the race is a very flat and basically the peloton just waits for the mass finish. My team stayed in the main group nicely and did very little work up front. I was able to get Paulinho and Egoi away in a break which forced the other teams in the main group to do all the work up front to pull them back in. As we approached the finish I set up my train with Vaitkus up front leading it out, Murn right behind him, and then Davis in the 3rd slot. I put the rest of the boys behind Davis but they could not keep up. The setup went perfect and Davis just edged out Sieberg from Milram and I was even sure he won until the replay although Davis did the celebration thing so I assume he won it. I was most worried about Robbie McEwen but the computer did a bad job setting him up and he got stuck in traffic several riders back and never made a real run at me. Overall it was a good solid race especially for my less talented guys. I plan on running many of these same guys again at the end of Jan and early Feb. Also this is the first time that I have actually been able to get a lead out sprint finish to work for me. I have been close in the past but the big guns always seem to out sprint me in the end or their train is just much stronger. For some reason it all came together this time around. I am assuming it was because other teams were not at full fitness and again McEwen was put in a bad position for the finish by the AI plus his form of the day was bad and his his stamina was low at the end for some reason (I had Pate observing him the whole race).
Tour of Cali:
This is the first "major" race I am looking at. While I would love to put an All American team out for this one, I don't think my top guys will have enough fitness for it plus I am saving most of the them for TDF and don't want to start building fatigue on them this early in the season.
My projected lineup is (but could change)
~Big George (as leader) (I would use Levi but his fitness is not there yet)
~Allan Davis (sprinter)
~Devolder
~Gusev
~Popo
~Chechu
~Vaitkus
~Brajkovic
~Julich or Horner depending on form and fitness
In the future I will include some screen shots from the race to help tell the story a little bit better. I was kicking myself for not saving the photo finish because it would have been a good screenshot.
Edited by mdd31 on 07-11-2007 15:16
