Summer womens crits have started

So it is well into the summer heat, as well as criterium races and our team has now had 2 great Sundays away racing women's criterium racing.
Being a part of a cycling team has so many benefits and one of my favourites is the camaraderie and craziness that occurs in the cars when we go away racing together.
You learn so much about each other that of course can help you out racing...but sometimes it feels like what happens on tour stays on tour.
You learn who is patient and who likes to get things done yesterday, who is the control freak and who is quite happy to be a by stander and not get involved..... 4 girls trying to load 4 bikes plus spare wheels plus trainers plus bags into a van brings up many emotions.
But enough about the travel, lets talk about racing... Cykel Events is running the Women's Grand Prix again this summer and it is one of our teams goals to go well, as it is definitely the level of event that we are all capable of riding and having an impact, especially with the 2 (or now 3) grades.

So off we headed down to Casey fields on the 16th, Nik, Tayla Evans (as a guest rider for a few races this Summer), Jo Wall, myself and Cheryle and Gary team support, Lauretta was meeting us down there. We headed down in our pretty groovy with lots of buttons SKODA Octavia wagon thanks to Symes motors.... all excited for our first official team race, Jo painting her nails for the first time ever, Kate excited to have company and Nik concentrating on driving, trying to ignore the nerves.
The clouds were clearing as we arrived after thunder and down pours of rain, and we all road a few laps together, commenting on who was going to push the hardest in the prologue and if we could last our 3min effort. We were all off around 10min apart from each other, Tayla first and myself last, long story short, we all smashed it and made div 1, and had 1.5hrs before we were to race. I think this made Tayla nervous but was good to have us all in division 1.
The race was interesting, we had wanted to make it aggressive, and Lauretta got in the first break of the day which lasted for about 3 long laps, it was windy out there and this created a very on again off again race and everyone was very touchy on the breaks. The first sprint came around and Lauretta got on the front for myself, however as we had never practised this before, she forgot to open a gate for me to pass through and when Nicole Whitburn and Jen Macpherson jumped a little early to my right and boxed me in I basically had to hit the brakes hard before going again and got 4th. A crash occurred in the back on this lap with an unfortunate rider requiring a ambulance, so we all had to wait until this happened, it only took about 20min and then we were given 4 laps to go.

Pippa Savage from Total Rush launched straight away and set the final few laps off to a cracking pace, Jo got some grass action and the break had given Lauretta and myself time to discuss our lead out. At 1 to go I was positioned well and it started bunching up, Lauretta joined me and just before the left up the hill I told her to go, I could tell she was tired as e only just got to the front which meant I would have to jump earlier than what I wanted. About 20m before turning left into the final straight I yelled at Lauretta to open the gate and went underneath her and went for it. I knew at 30m to go I was starting to die but kept pushing and threw on the line, to only be beaten by the ever strong Nicole Whitburn, I need longer arms to throw that bit further I think... The rest of the girls finishing the race and having a good learning day. With goals for the future races being described planned and set on the drive home.. Full results can be seen here and timing and points here at MYLAPS