Saturday, August 7, 2004

2004 Michigan State Criterium Championships, Ada, MI

This year the Michigan State Criterium Championships were moved from Midland to Ada, MI. The course in Ada is flat and fast, almost like a triangle. The start line is on a wide main street, with a right turn about 100 meters past the line. From turn 1, the course drops into turn 2 immediately and onto the long back side stretch, which is slightly up hill. Turn three is a 120 degree corner, slightly off camber and downhill. From there the course drops into a shallow 30 degree turn and the wide finishing stretch. Positioning at the sharp turn 3 is pivotal to success in a sprint on this course.

Team Bikesport/AAVC was well represented. For the Category 1,2 Team the following racers were presents: Dave Koesel, Steve Geerligs, Matt Siebert, Jeff Hamilton, Josh Tarrant and Houston Peterson, who interestingly enough was wearing a Flying Rhinos jersey (?). For the Category 3 team the following were racing: Joe Lekovish, Alex Keomany, Jordan Stohl, Vince Roberge, James Whitesides, John Ridgon, Jeff Elam, Mark Caswell and Randy Hermann.

The Category 1,2 race got off to a fast start. Within 2 laps a break of 8 riders was away, with Jeff Hamilton in there representing TBLFAAVC long with 2 Ford/Giant and a mixture of other teams. Immediately, alarms went off in the pack as ABG Cycling was not well represented and a determined chase started. Over the next 5 laps the break was reeled in. About 1 lap before the catch, Nick Durrie of Ford/Giant/AAVC attacked solo off the front of the break and rode to a 15 second lead. This move looked doomed to fail, until Brian Sheedy of ABG Cycling attacked and rode away from the pack. Brian was racing in the ABG colors at this race after a successful season riding for Team Seasilver, which included a 30^th placing at the USPRO Championships in Philadelphia in June. Brian caught Nick within 3 laps and the 2 immediately had a 30 second gap. With the ABG Cycling and Ford/Giant/AAVC teams thwarting any chase attempts, Nick and Brian built on their lead to 1:05 until the were within sight of the rear of the pack. In the 2-up sprint, Brian Sheedy came around Nick Durrie in the last 50 meters to take the win. Nick capped off a great 2^nd place, after an exciting victory just a week ago at the Rose City Criterium in Jackson. Nick is in excellent form and has been a great booster of the TBLFAAVC Cat 3 team, showing up at the Tuesday night crit practices and giving some great on-bike racing lessons. It’s great to see him riding so well. In the field sprint for for 3^rd place, West Michigan Coast Riders tore it up taking 3^rd and 4^th. A crash in the last 3 laps derailed the TBLFAAVC team with Josh Tarrant landing in a ditch and out of the race and Dave Koesel having to chase back on and only just catching the pack with 1 lap to go. Another victim of this crash was Andre Champoux of the Wolverines, who was head to toe mud on his backside, he looked like a crash you may see in the Paris-Roubaix race!

The final race of the day was the Mens Category 3 race. As a very dark foreshadowing the start was delayed 3 separate times as ambulances carted off victims of crashes in the preceding Category 4 race. Twice the Category 3 field took the start line only to be delayed as medics continued to work on injured Cat 4 racers. In the post race meeting the atmosphere was electric. After great racing and great team work at the Major Taylor Road Race and Rose City Criterium, the team was really riding well together. Everyone was extremely pumped up to go, you could literally see the fire in everyone’s eyes. From the start the race was extremely aggressive, with the guys from Ada Bike team wanting to put on a good showing. Honestly, I don’t recall a lot from this race, except that it seemed to be a constant strung out group with riders attacking and counterattacking endlessly. The report average speed was 27.4mph. Norm Zeller, the MI Challenge Series leader who last week placed 2^nd overall and won the KOM at the Tour de Toona reported that the pace was much faster than the crit stage there. One Flying Rhino who had raced the Masters 35+ race, usually the 2^nd fastest race, also reported that the Cat 3 race was much faster than the 35+ race.

TBLFAAVC riders were very prominent at the front and contested every one of the 6 primes offered, winning 4 with Travis Stebbins and James Whitesides each taking 1 and Joe Lekovish taking 2. As the race wound down to 5 minutes to go the pace was furious with a lot of attacking, but no successful breaks going clear. With a lot of team work the pack was brought together for the final lap and all attacks were neutralized. TBLFAAVC’s designated sprinter, Jeff Elam (who’s been lighting up the Cat 3 field sprints) was well positioned in about 4^th-5^th wheel going into the tight 120 degree turn. Blasting out of this last corner it was a top-fuel drag race to the line with Jeff taking an extremely close 2^nd place to current MI Cat 3 road race champ, Norm Zellers of Team By Grace/Giant. The finish was so close it took several minutes for the officials to review the finish video to determine the victor. Two other TBLFAAVC riders rounded out the top 10.

TBLFAAVC riders raced a fantastic race. Everyone was extremely aggressive and rode smart. I can’t say enough about what fun it was to be part of this group. Congrats team.

After a break of 2 weeks, the MI Challenge Series will start back up with the Lapeer Days Criterium on Sunday, August 22 and the Rockford Criterium on Saturday, August 28. Both of these courses are extremely competitive layouts and will make for some fantastic racing. The Rockford Criterium has the biggest cash payouts in Michigan, $4,200 for the Cat 1,2 and $1,000 for the Cat 3 fields, so expect some fast racing.

Keep training and we’ll see you guys out there.