All Fields GMSR Stage 4 - Scott Brooks 9-3-07
It’s taken a couple of days to come out of the post GMSR fog and put together the final results, but what a great weekend it was. For those not familiar with the course, the final day is a downtown Burlington, VT course. It features lefts and rights, six turns, a blazing downhill with a 90 degree left hand turn, and 60 feet of climbing per lap, all packed into .60 miles. Combine that with 100 of your closest friends, all vieing for overall points and primes after four days of racing and you have one of the most intense races of the year.
In the men’s cat 3 race, Gary Douville started the day in second place, just 13 points behind the GC leader. Needing a top three finish, the team was determined to give him everything that we had left. In the final lap, there were two substantial crashes that caused the officials to give everyone in the pack the same number of points. Gary took sixth in the stage, and 6 bonus points that went with it, but finished in 2nd overall, just seven points out of the yellow jersey. Scott Brooks, Dave Chiu, Greg Brown and Jesse Chebot each battled their way through various exploits and carnage during the race to contribute.
In the women’s cat 3/4 race, Sam Dery tried throughout the entire race to put the hammer down and splinter the group. From the first lap to the final corner, she was consistently in the top handful of riders. She came out of the final corner in second wheel, only to get swarmed at the line. To finish seventh in the stage and ninth overall as the only rider for the team is unbelievable.
The men’s 4 field, 32+ saw Tim Dodd continue to excel in the sprints, where he took 10th place on the day. Brian Anderson battled through several happenings, crossing the line outside of the top 20 and seeing his overall GC standing slide. He still finished 20th overall in another very tough field.
Colby Ricker and Mark Theeman came to Vermont with unknown expectations of the race and themselves. After starting and finishing the race each day, it can easily be said that these two riders have a lot of promise in the coming years. Combinging their ages they still wouldn’t qualify for all of the masters fields that were represented, but it does show very strong promise for the coming years of the team.
In the marquee race of the day, P/1/2, Roy van Cleef, Peter Bradshaw and Chris Hong each took their places alongside some of the best that New England has to offer. Each of these riders was racing cat 3 just a couple of weeks ago. To complete a ride with over 200 miles and nearly 15,000 feet of climbing is an accomplishment, to do it at race pace in four consecutive days is awesome.
Congratulations to all that raced this past weekend. I’ve certainly not done justice to the racing that everyone from the Pro field down to the citizen race accomplished. These daily digests are meant as a teaser to the club for what happened. I encourage everyone who raced, to share with everyone else their report of the weekend. Some folks came to see what one person described as “an absolutely once in a lifetime race”, some came to push themselves to levels that one day races can’t take you and others came back to battle their own demons that the race puts into you. Next years race promises to be bigger, better and hopefully represented by more NEBC racers. Just four years ago we had four jersey’s in the entire race, now we have well over 25!!!
I speak for all of the racers when I would like to thank many specific people who helped out. First, thanks to the Cycle Loft, Devonshire and Accelerade for supplying various provisions. Thank you to the club members for coming out and standing on the sidelines and cheering on the last 100 meters of App Gap. Thank you to the riders support staff who prepped bottles, manned (and womanned) feed zones waiting for hours for us. Thank you to Guy Bedau for providing on-site massages. Thank you to the racers for showing up and participating. And thank you to the entire club for your emails, well wishes and patience as you read through the overview of the daily racing.
Scott