Brecksville Race's

The pavement was wet as I started warming up on the course watching Mike Gorman crush all of his opponets. Great job Mike! I had talked about doing the same thing with Dan Quinlan(sp) before our race. One person can't do it alone from the beginning in the cat 1-3 race. I think I told Dan I will have to see who shows up and if it would be the right time to attack. I was talking to S. Kadar as we got started and then within 2 seconds from our start I rolled off the front, but not hard. Then before the first turn I looked back and I saw only one rider. I smiled and took off.

Three hills later on the first lap I saw Tris Hopkens(sp). coming and two others way back. I eased off the pedals and Tris got my wheel and we were off. From what I remember (which could be wrong) He took a short pull in the flat section before the down hill and then I charged down the hill as fast as I thought I could. Then before the big climb on the first lap Tris led up the hill. The Hill is now called a bump in the road by my Dad and I am sure Don Cernanic(sp). would say the same. The Hill used to be bigger back in the days Dad's State Road races were 21 laps for a total of 85+ miles. Don was telling me they cut off the top of the Hill. Don told me this in my first year I raced in the cat 1-3 field in 2003.

As Tris led me up the hill I tried hard to help Tris out the rest of the race and it worked. Tris was so much stronger than me for sure. Tris dropped me on the Hill on the 3rd lap and I felt like that all day, just hanging on. Once we had 2:45 sec on the field I knew it would be a great ending for me. The time gaps were closing fast 2:15, 1:45, 1:15, then I looked back and told Tris I see them. We eased up so we could hold there wheels as they would fly by. Paul, Dan, Brian, Nate... hey where is Kirk. Well I saw the field when they were coming too. So that was not good to see also. So there was six of us just tooling around with Kirk Albers(sp) in the field smiling at us.

Then we come to the Hill again, I told myself I have too hang on to these guys. Well...I got dropped. Sometimes things just aren't meant to be. I didn't give up I kept going then I remembered the field should be close. Sure enough I could see them and if I could see them they could see me.
I thought I saw someone coming so I took a better look. Sure enough it was Kirk. I didn't look good enough the first time or I would have saw him 50 feet away. So when I looked the 2nd time he was 10 feet away and going 10 mph faster than me, which is like 100 when a car passes by real fast. I sprinted to blow myself up and it worked I grabbed Kirk's wheel. He pulled me for 30 sec and I said just get me to the downhill and I will pull the rest of the way. Kirk looked like he nodded his head and pulled hard. It was like the pace of Tris and I's first couple of laps, which was great for me cause now I'm not going to get caught by the field. I reasured Kirk that he could do it and that I will pull the hole flat section before the downhill.

After the last knoll before the turn to the flat section before the down hill I came around Kirk and said "here we go". I started out slow and ramped it up slowly and once I saw them I had to choose to fly by them or just be happy with what I did today. The two motorcycles made my decision easy as I passed the one motorcycle across the double yellow line. I knew Charles was on the next motorcycle so I just went behind everyone else. Kirk must have stayed behind me a little bit so he would have made the gap between the riders and the motorcycles. Kirk blew by them with fresh legs thanks to me towing him. But Thanks to Kirk for helping me out cause I would have been ate up by the field. It would have been awesome to see if Kirk could have caught them by hiself cause that would have been awesome to see and I would have had fresh legs up the hill which would have been even better. I am so glad I did get 7th cause Tris deserved 6th place, even if he did have a mechanical.