Second-guessing strategy is half the fun of any spectator sport, and there were a couple of good examples to come out of this past weekend’s USPRO Criterium Championship in Downers Grove, Illinois. Just minutes after the race, in which Kevin Monahan (7UP-Maxxis) beat Saturn’s Chris Horner and Mark McCormack for the race win and the stars-and-stripes jersey, McCormack readily admitted that he might have done things differently if he were presented with the same scenario again.

Here’s how it played out. Heading toward the final turn, Horner and McCormack are one-two. McCormack decides to open up a gap for Horner, in the hope that Horner will spring away to the win. It’s a tactic that’s worked at Downers Grove in the past, but the problem is, Monahan reacts almost instantly to come around McCormack. Monahan exits the final turn glued to Horner’s wheel and then takes the sprint for the win fairly easily.

I’d have to agree with McCormack’s honest self-critique. You’re a sprinter being led out to Downers Grove’s final turn, heading into the notoriously short 150-meter finishing straight. Not only that, but as McCormack said, Horner was flying heading into that turn. If McCormack stays on Horner’s wheel, I’d say the chances of him taking the jersey (to go along with his USPRO road champion’s jersey) are pretty high. As it was, though, McCormack made a selfless move, and it would have been a nice story had Horner won the crit championship. It would have been a nice payback to Horner for setting McCormack up to take the title in Philadelphia, but it wasn’t to be. As it was, Monahan made the move of the day, and deserves all the credit for his win.

Of course, when things work out for you, nobody can second-guess you, so clearly 7UP’s strategy of setting up its train at the front with about six laps to go was successful. The Navigators did basically the same thing and came away empty, not even cracking the top five. Yes, there was some confusion over a free lap for Marty Nothstein coming into play. And as Chris Wherry said, it was only him and Mark Walters pulling for four laps, so it’s not as if the team was burning too many matches too early.

But … looking back to the night before, when the team waited and waited and waited until the final lap before springing Nothstein, Vassili Davidenko and Oleg Grichkine to the front — a tactic that played out to perfection — it was hard not to ask, why not try something along similar lines?

Oh well, as they say, that’s racing.

Who said cycling fans are cheap? (Oh, I guess I did, a couple of weeks back.) At Downers Grove, with the race winding down, the spectators ponied up $600 (including some matching funds from Windy City Sports), in the course of just a few laps for the crowd prime, handed out with four laps to go. It was quite the fund-raising effort, although I thought the announcers were milking the little kids a little hard for those one- and two-dollar donations. Wherry, driving the Navigators train, ended up taking the bonus without even realizing it. “I was just doing my job,” he told the crowd afterwards.

How many donuts are too many? 775,000? That’s how many donuts Krispy Kreme in Kansas City has given away, after a promotion in which fans get a dozen donuts if they attend a game in which the Royals get 12 hits or more. Might be time to move to the Midwest ….

I’ve been trying to think how to run a similar type promotion for cycling. If a 7UP rider wins San Francisco, free sodas to anyone in Lycra? If a Jelly Belly guy wins, free jelly beans? If a Schroeder Iron rider wins? Um, okay, I’ll think about this one a little longer.

At what point do you start second-guessing a column?

If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go catch a Royals’ game.