Posted by Dan on 8. June 2010 05:13
The call for local races in Hampton Roads was answered this weekend with a pair of fine crits presented by Team TriPower and Celerity Cycling p/b Fitness Together. First up was the Amphibious Assault Crit held within the heavily guarded Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek - Fort Story. Wick and Frank took their chances with the gate guards, the wind and new-for-2010 furnacey heat (as opposed to last year's rain). Had the winds shifted 180 degrees, it might have been very pleasant with cool bay breezes pushing riders down the back stretch. Instead, they got hot winds from the southwest making things miserable. I was comfortably seated in a church somewhere in Virginia Beach listening to the soothing music at my children's violin recital so if you want details, check out Frank's blog. We don't write about such things here. SPOILER: Congratulations to Frank on his 4th place finish following some hard work and wise moves.
Sunday was our turn to promote. All season long, we take take take. It was time we gave something back. Something fast, oval and hot. We thoughtfully held our race on the inland side of the tunnel at the Langley Speedway in Hampton. To put it in food terms, racing at Langley Speedway is like the microwave popcorn of the racing world - just set up an official's tent, add riders and BEEEP! you've got a race.
The first race we participated in was the Cat 4 run right after the juniors when it was a cool 90 degrees out. Frank, Wick and I took a break from whatever it was we were doing while my wife ran registration and lined up. Steve M. graciously agreed to help in the officials' tent so he didn't get to race. Steve has our undying gratitude (but not our money). Thanks, Steve!
The 4 race started out fast and simmered down after a lap or two. Wick was the first off the front. He regretted his decision as he motored past the lap board which read '56' or some awful number like that. The pack seemed unwilling to play his reindeer games and he was caught within a few laps. Very shortly after I was gone with Hugh Brown of Rostello/Cycor and a TriPower rider. We had a good thing going but soon lost TriPower. Hugh and I fought the pain of our loss and continued on until a catch looked imminent with something like 42 to go and he decided to sit up. I opted to do the opposite, opening the gap a little more.
The last thing in the world I expected at that time was for Frank to come sashaying up and suggest we "do this." A brief glance confirmed we still had a gap so we kept it up. Back in the pack, Wick was having the time of his life causing hate and discontent by disrupting any semblance of organization that dared raise its frail, wobbly head. Frank and I whittled away the laps until we hit 10 to go and we were joined by Noah Clevinger of JRVS/Casey Auto. The three of us worked to near exhaustion and finished ahead of the pack. Frank and I took 1st and 2nd (not necessarily in that order) and Noah got 3rd. Always nice to win your own race. Thanks, Frank and Wick!
Fat Frogs hosted a race at Langley Speedway in April during their well-attended race weekend and had to cancel their track events due to low turnout. In an attempt to entice roadies to give track events another chance, we tacked on an all-categories, all-ages, road-bike-only Miss & Out race. Frank and I would do this one too because that's the kind of people we are. Unfortunately for me, I did not study up on Miss & Out tactics (or any track tactics for that matter) so I was absolutely clueless. I figured I'd ride this like a crit, tucking in a safe spot and coming around just before the line. That worked for the first two laps, but I found myself all boxed in with nowhere to sprint on the third. Not wanting to stop the race to fill out an incident report (especially if it was on me), I was out. Frank went on to finish 5th out of 11. Congratulations to Mark King, Kevin Horvath and Tim Pope for their finishes in this extremely fun race. We'll be doing more of these soon.
Photo courtesy of BJ Samuel.
The final race for our team would be the masters race. After a few very tame warm-up laps, Dan King, Tim Mullins and I went off the front. We lapped the field in what seemed like 5 laps. Maybe a little more, probably less. We mingled with the field and were shortly joined by the chase group that had followed us from the way back when. Now we had a peloton with 50% of the riders on the lead lap. Having not taken inventory of the chase group, it was difficult knowing who was who so everything was countered. At some point near the end, Bill Scanlon slipped away virtually unnoticed. When the bunch sprint finally rolled around, he'd already won and I was ready for a nap. Riding Frank's really old 9-speed Fuji Roubaix with a 10-speed cassette and the most uncomfortable bars ever made, sprinting was probably a bad idea so I just sat there and took 10th.
With that, our racing for the day came to an end. We had a few more races to go before we packed up and went home. We want to thank the folks at Brooks Systems, Langley Speedway, concessioners, officials and each and every rider and spectator that came out to brave the heat and race, making this a fantastic and incident-free event. I'll be ecstatic if our Campus Crit at ODU on 8/1 runs half as smooth as this one.
Lydia got some pictures of the Cat 4 and Masters races. They'll be posted here when ready.
UPDATE: Results have been posted.