Today gave me a whole new perspective on running a race. I didn't race, I just came out to volunteer. I was in charge of organizing the corner marshals and police, and then just to fill in where I was needed. The whole day was actually quite frantic.
All the corner marshals were AWESOME...thanks to everyone for your help! We got a lot of compliments on how awesome the whole route was patrolled. Sweet!
After the second wave of volunteers showed up to replace those that were racing at 1:30, I had to drive the wheel truck for the last lap of the 1/2 race. I ended up with a Gumpy's rider named Amy in the truck with me (she was trying to catch Matt Anderson to get her dry clothes). It was bad-ass to see the race playing out from right behind the lead group. On the final climb of the day, Timmer got dropped by the group, so I yelled some words of encouragement out the window. At the crest of the hill he dug deep, caught up to the pack, and blew right by them! This got the other riders on their toes. He ended up getting 6th or so, but that guy's got some huge balls.
Doug won again, of course. Cullen also scored a huge win against a stacked 35+ field, and local guy Steve Cragle got 4th. Unfortunately there was huge crash at the end, but no one appeared to be seriously injured.
I then made a few laps of the course to make sure all the corners were covered, then went to the bar to get some brats with the Grandstay guys. It took like 40 minutes to get two brats and sodas, but it was fun to hear all the 1/2 guys talking about the different aspects of racing.
I then headed out to the feed zone to do hand-ups for a couple of our Cat 3 guys. Poor Peter had gotten dropped from the group on the tailwind section. Due to being under 18, he's forced to have a top gear of only 52x14, and he just couldn't spin fast enough to stay with the group at 45mph. I heard the story from him no less than 4 times, so it must have been true.
Some guy in the following picture tried to take one of the water bottles from me, then got pissed when I wouldn't give it to him. Dude, it's not yours...
I also stuck around to cheer on the stragglers. Those guys are hardcore. You're out of contention, it's 60 degrees and raining with a 30mph wind, and you keep going. Heroic.
In the 4's, LSC went 2-3 with Jake Cohen and John Rotach. I'm sure other did awesome today too, but I didn't see the end of all the races.
I have a whole new respect for how much work goes into organizing a race. I've volunteered at races before, but never where I was involved with the whole day. Guys like Jim Bell put in twice as much work as I did, plus they had their own races to ride. Nice work, guys.
At the end, one of the Cadets who was helping the sheriffs patrol the course thought he had lost one of his radios. He hadn't, but he was very very concerned about it. They must do some sort of ritualistic floggings when rookies lose county equipment. Hopefully it all worked out OK.
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