I've been fortunate (or perhaps careful enough) to be near the front and thus in front of most of the crashes that have occured in the races so far. I've only been in the middle of one and I managed to get stopped without going over. Very weird to be left standing in the middle of a pileup.

Like I said, I think that there is something about the Mason Lake course. Most of the crashes that I've seen/heard about and especially the severe ones have occured there. Perhaps it is a combination of it being very early in the season, before everyone either gets their pack skills back or develops them, the size of the fields, that don't split much since the course is fairly short, and the narrowness of the road, but pileups seem to occur more frequently there.

I try to not worry about it to much. Worrying about falling seems worse than actually doing it. Not that I've fallen a lot, but I've gone over a few times -not racing, but once because some doofus came around a corner on the interurban trail on the wrong side of the road, another time on a rain slick bit of paint on the road and its never as bad as the imagination can make it. My only one real fear is that since I'm so much smaller than most of everyone that someone might hook my handlebars and cause an ugly crash. I definitely try to make sure that when its close quarters I stay in my drops and out of range of other people handlebars.

In any case I think that it is thinning out a bit and the overall bike handling in the pack is getting better. Sequim and Market Street were both much smaller and more controlled fields so I'm not feeling scared off by any means. Can't wait to be out there tomorrow!