First Race - Covered Bridge

OK, let's get to the facts; I was "over served" on the last night of business meetings Friday, so Saturday was a travel and get over the effects of Friday. Not the best pre-race training, but what the heck.
I haven't completed the Covered Bridge race yet. Last year, was the knee operation & the year before that was when I blew my knee out again during the race. My goal(s) for the race were:
- finish the dang thing in the pack at least
- see if I could help out any of my team mates get on the podium
- if not the above, then get into position to challenge for the sprint if I felt good.
The course is roughly 5 miles long,five laps of flats/rolling hills and only one tricky turn at the covered bridge. I was riding in the CAT 4, 5/Masters & Citizen field; 25 miles total. I started the race in the back of the pack and then worked my way up to the front 1/3 of the field once my legs got loosened up. We had Jason, Dave, Gary, Jeff, Peter and Pat wearing an old PDQ kit. We wanted to get the group together on the last lap and help put Peter on the podium. Jason went off the front like 4 times, Peter kept himself in great position and I watched for any breaks to make sure that Peter or I was in them. One break looked good, we had two guys in it (Jeff & Peter?), I sat up and tried to block, but soon felt like I was in a F1 race with people passing me by. At the bell lap I put myself in the position I wanted, Gary joined me, but I didn't see Peter and once I got to the front and was hitting 30 mph, felt like it was too early and I was only helping out Jared (Oct. Lake Effect), so I sat up and drifted back. Maybe too far back and by the time we got to the long final stretch, I was in horrid position to to anything; help Peter/Jeff/Gary or contest the sprint. I did sprint up to the lead group and break into the top 15 or so....most of us finished in that group.
Stats are: (roughly - I didn't turn on/off the Polar exactly at the start/finish)
1:13:43.9, 27.1 miles, HR avg - 142, max HR - 166, avg spd - 22.1, max spd - 35.1, avg CAD - 99, max CAD - 138, avg wattage - 270, max watts - 764, 1060 ft of climbing total and temp went from 66'F at the start to 79'F at the finish.
I'll not be doing next week's race due to parenting responsibilities.

Thanks for reading,
Rick