I heard your reason for going from so far out, and it's a valid one. The suggestion to look down to gauge your efforts is related to that - with such a significant course feature (i.e. people focus on it) it can get very, very fast just before it. Therefore you want to go not-too-hard. If guys are just sitting back behind you and not moving much then it's fine. If you can ease a bit that would be better for you, so you have more gas later. It's all about feathering your effort, doing as little as possible initially so that later you have more reserves left.

In races where the last corner is super close to the line (you had one like that before) being first out of the corner would probably land you a podium spot.

I haven't posted a video on the race but last year I was in a race with a 180 about half a mile before the finish. The 180 really defined the finish and I knew it'd be huge in affecting the finale. I moved up hard and was shocked that no one contested the move. I ended up making a major error about 1/4 mile later (wrong side relating to wind) and I had no sprint. However if I'd been 5 feet to the right at that 1/4 mile point I think I could have done a good finish. I mention this because before and after the 180 I was doing the "look down to see what's happening behind" thing. I moved up hard, looking down frequently to see if others were contesting the corner as well, and after the 180 we were crawling just after the 180, waiting for the swarm, and again I was looking down to look back.