So here's the story. I was racing a couple of weekends ago and there was a big wreck immediately in front of me. About 15 bikes went down, I'm literally doing bunny hops sideways on my bike to avoid arms. This wasn't even half way through the first lap. I see the front group take off and I'm eeking up this hill after losing all momentum. I'm trying to catch the front group and the wind decided otherwise. So the group behind me apparently falls into oblivion or something and I keep thinking they will catch up to me. Well they don't aside from a few riders. One much stronger than me and she continued on to catch the front group and another caught me and was completely spent at that point. So here I am 4 more laps to go and stuck between groups in the wind of death. I was alone until the last lap at which point I'm really low on energy. By the time people found me I had lost all my scrap. I finished with this group but had nothing to duke out a good finish.

My question is what is the best approach when the field gets broken up like this? Should I have just fallen back to the other group in the beginning or what? I was lost as for what to do being as I could see the front group pulling away from us after the wreck. I'm racing again this weekend and would like to figure out a better approach in case something like this happens again.