Dominguez Hills Crit Course

This is the other CBR course where they generally run four or five crits per season. This differs from the Hughes Park course in that it has what some crit monkeys call "terrain". That's about thirty feet of altitude gain per 0.9 mile lap. Although it doesn't sound like much, this is going to add up to 600' of climbing in a 45 minute crit which will wither the chunkier riders pretty well (unlike Hughes Park which may actually have zero altitude gain.) The course is run both clockwise and counter-clockwise (CBR generally alternates). The start/finish is on Broadwick (see link)

Clockwise: Turn one is never very problematic, but you may find yourself braking on the inside line. The run between one and two is generally gnarly on the last lap or primes. Trying to move up on the inside is chancy because people nowadays seem to think that all corners should be ridden from outside curb through the apex and exiting wide. Turn two is sharper than 90 degrees, off camber and comes after a downhill. In Men's 4/5 and Women's 4 this is where riders pile up.  Crashes tend to happen on the entrance while riders brake too much going in.  The outside line is technically more difficult as it is off-camber in the apex, but I use it precisely because others avoid it. Turn three is structurally messy and the following straight necks down since that's where the coned-off car traffic is allowed on one lane. There are gutters and a few small fissures in the asphalt/concrete interface which can screw you up. It's slightly downhill going in. A little bumpy. Turn four has lots of space on the exit and the sprint is uphill. The dicey moments tend to happen on the short straights late in a race.

Advice: I like the inside line more when near the front and going fast. Back in the pack you'll find people slowing inordinately when they're on the inside. There are two distinct "humps", between turns 3&4 and to the finish. In spite of how things look, it's the little uphill from 3 to 4 that really seems to make or break the finish. I have actually seen the pack come apart at this point on the last lap. Be there or be square!

Counterclockwise: You go downhill into turn one which is narrowed (see above) on the exit but generally smooth. Turn two is bumpy, but less trouble this way because of the wide exit and (very) slight rise on the straight into it. Turn three and the straight that follows tend to cause the most trouble. The reasons must be purely tactical because anybody who races much should fly through without significant risk. It amounts to this, on a prime or finish lap I'd say you're about 40 seconds from the line when you enter his turn. The straight after the turn kicks uphill pretty quick. I've nicked a number of primes by getting a teammate to put me in front and accelerating at this point. Anyone who's going to try to take the prime from you at this point had better be on your wheel because a committed racer can quickly open a gap on the uphill. At the finish lap this tactic is suicide, because everyone's going to be going about 33MPH coming out of this and opening any gap is near impossible.

Advice: Crunch time comes on the backstraight - period. There will absolutely be an all-out sprint from turn 3 to 4 up the hill in every race, so you need to be placed high and going fast into turn 3 in my opinion.

Digression on the curb-apex-curb cornering technique: This would work great if (and only if) you are the only rider on the course. I've raced about 50 crits in the last year or so. In round numbers, that's about 1000 miles of elbow-to-elbow wheel-to-wheel hammering and I have not crashed in that period. I make that out to be about 5000 successful corners at speed. Any idiot who tries to take the whole road to complete a corner would become fatally unpopular pretty quick. Unfortunately there are bloogers and youtube bike racing professors who teach this. In most races you'll find yourself at least three across in any corner. Follow the guy in front of you, don't change your line or brake suddenly. Relax.