Marblehead is a New England tradition that officially starts each new racing season. The 2008 edition featured perfect weather with cool temps, minimal wind, and bright sunshine. Even the race course, which is on the island, had freshly paved surfaces for fast smooth racing. Geoff Hamilton does a great job organizing and holding the race each year with a solid group of CCB volunteers to help marshal the course. Every intersection was covered for safe worry free racing and CCB had solid presence in the race itself, great club, great race, thank you.
The race was the first opportunity for all members of Team FUJI fueled by Clif Bar to compete together. We agreed to meet in the morning to go over race strategy so that we had a clear plan depending on how the race played out and ultimately how we were going to control the finish should the race stay together. The first of the two races was the Masters 35+ with a full field. As always it is nice to see familiar faces and personalities again, many with new kits and shiney new bikes.
The masters race started relatively calm with a few attacks that were covered well by the team. It became obvious that it would stay together and with 2 of the 11 laps to go we started forming our finishing line up. Mark Gunsalus did a terrific job of keeping the pace high prior to the last hairpin turn and beyond up to the final rise where Frankie took over and gently increased the speed and power to the point that it was all I could do to stay on his wheel. He created a significant gap that allowed the two of us to cross the finish line 1st and 2nd with Mark taking the field sprint for a Team FUJI fueled by Clif Bar podium sweep.
The longer and faster P/1/2/3 race also came back together after several attempts to get away failed. Mark G again was present at the end to help Frank move up to be ready to support Mark for the finish. The pair of McCormack's were clearly being marked and the speed and depth of the field made it a challenge to repeat the timing of the earlier race. Frank again laid down a "Pro" lead out that was just short of getting Mark to were he ultimately needed to be and finished 4th.
An excellent start to the season, the FUJI SL-1 bikes performed flawlessly with the new Mavis R-SYS wheels wrapped in Challenge rubber rolled super sweet with a ride quality and rigidity that typically are not found at the same time. (The team will be giving reviews and impressions in detail as the season progresses on all of our top notch equipment as well as feed back on the various Clif Bar products that fuel us.)
This coming weekend has a training race scheduled at Charge Pond in the Myles Standish State Forest. The following weekend is the Chris Hinds Memorial Criterium at Ninnigret Park in RI. Updates will follow, stay tuned.
0 comments:
Post a Comment