Racer Ex, I'd love to know your secret!
No one has mentioned this yet to the OP, but you're generally (not always, but generally) safer towards the front of a race. I'm still relatively new to racing, but from my experience crashing at some point seems unavoidable. I've had a few this season, I had one teammate go down yesterday in a race and then two more today. In the case of two of them (the ones I saw) the guys were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.