Absolutely. Get up front and set the tempo. If someone trys to go around, jump in behind them. Then they have no one who will work with them and are unlikely to bridge the gap solo. The crit corner suggestion is great, but in a Road Race, this does not work. Instead, go hard enough to string out two or three riders behind you and then slowly, and cautiously weave from side to side. Before I catch hell for this, I am not saying do anything nasty or dangerous. Just string out two or three behind you and slowly drift to the yellow line. The three behind you will want to stay in your draft, the pack over by the yellow line is cut off from attacking, and the guys by the white line now have to either fight up 5 or more bike lengths into the wind (where you can just pop over onto their wheels) or come across the peloton to the yellow line side . After 10 seconds of this, drift slowly back to the white line. Now that side of the pack is cut off, and the yellow line side has to do the same thing. It REALLY disrupts pace, is not dangerous or illegal, and it helps to wear down the peloton evenly so that no one just hides in one place. Just remember, keep the pace up on the front end so it is not easy for people to pass you, but still be slow enough where the break can gain some time (assuming they know how to work together). Oh, and even when there is no break, practice this. Before long you get a knack of how easy it is to control the entire peloton (up until the last few miles).

Oh, and invariably there will be some wheel sucking Sprinters in the middle of the pack five or six bike lengths back that complain about the slow pace. Yell back and tell them you could be happy to see them come up and pull. They never do.