Home for a Few Days: Tour of the Gila, Stage 4

I missed stage 3 due to a doctor's appointment, but stage 4 is the Downtown Criterium! The big spectator day! Always loads of fun. 

Started the day by taking my mom and Ed (my mother's husband) to breakfast. We all ordered the same thing...New Mexico style red chile huevos rancheros. Tasty! 

The downtown criterium has always been part of the Tour of the Gila. One year the race directors caved to the pressure of the downtown business people and moved the crit onto the campus of WNMU, but it was a spectator flop and I guess the downtown merchants realized the amount of walk-in business during the race outweighed the normal car traffic business on a Saturday.

That said, the downtown course is quite simple. It is a rectangular course of left hand turns. It starts by going north on a slight uphill on Bullard St, Silver City's main street, then into Turn 1, a left hand onto College Avenue which is also a slight climb. It turns left again, south, onto Cooper Street at the public library, where it is a steeper climb still to 6th street where it crests, then bombs downhill to Market Street, only to climb again to the Grant County Courthouse and turns left again, east, onto a long downhill down Broadway. The racers finally hit turn four at 40+ mph, a 90-degree turn north back onto Bullard and up to the start/finish line to complete the 1 mile circuit.

Let the race spectating begin! I tried to get creative with my little Canon SD-1200IS point-n-shoot camera. I got off a few interesting pics. Most of these are unaltered except a couple have been cropped. I got some interest effects happening just by panning the camera as I took the picture. 

I got some interesting pics. Here are my favorites...

Tune-Town in the Cat 4-5 race. 

 Approaching the Start/Finish line.

Into Turn 1.

Little Shop of Horrors

Charlotte, of El Paso, TX, looking on.

A view of the Pros/Cat1 from David's porch.

A rad shot of the Pro/Cat1 from the roof of the Vacuum Cleaner Center.

The Pro/Cat1 zoom past.

1 more lap.

Crit racing is fun!