Race Recaps

The kidlets were all over the place this weekend... TK in Kentucky; AWfoSho, El Gigante, Mechanical, Tapinator, Staz, Alex Freund, and AJ in Livermore; Staz in Nevada City.

TK was looking to seal up a spot on the World's team with a good ride at the Tour of the Red River Gorge. He came up just short of locking up a spot with a 2nd in Saturday's TT. He beat Bax and Brown, but Liebowitz handed it to the field. Phinney, Brown, and now Liebowitz have three of the four spots, so Sunday's RR was a battle between TK and Bax for what is most likely the final spot... Hot Tubes marked TK like a sharpie, but he still managed to beat Bax to the line... problem is that Jacob Rathe won, throwing his hat into the mix. Three guys, one spot. Let's hope that politics don't leave TK on the sideline. The kidlet has earned a trip. One possible savior may be Jerika Hutchinson... she may have done well enough that USAC will only take one girl, opening up a fifth spot for the boys... We'll see...

The rest of the kidlets were vying for a district crit championship in Livermore.

Alex F easily bested the rest of the 13/14 field to earn his third title this year... good on him. With a win at the Diablo Hill Climb he can also lock up the junior point series title.

The best race of the day in Livermore had to be the 15/16 affair. Specialized brought out all of their guns and fired shot after shot. AJ, Mechanical, Tapinator, and El Gigante were on the defensive all day chasing move after move... interesting race strategy by the S boys, refusing to work in any move that El Gigante or Peter Taylor were in, driving it if they missed the selection. Taps gets credit for the ride of the weekend with his dogged efforts to nullify three or four or five moves that the kidlets missed. Seriously, best ride the kid has ever laid down! AJ and Mechanical both gave everything to the cause as well. I'm proud of all of them. In the finale El Gigante bridged up to Specialized's Laberge who had attacked solo. Laberge sat on him for the entire last lap leaving El Gigante between a rock and a hard place... sit up and go back to the field or drag the kidlet to the line. Knowing that he wasn't the fastest finisher in the field, El Gigante chose to go to the line where Laberge out kicked him to take the jersey. It's hard to race against five or six hand picked kids.

The 17/18 race was less tactical, still we came up with the same result. Staz snuck away from the field early with Lombardi's Huffman, but not before dealing out a little pay back to the S boyz... Huffman was up the road solo and Specialized's Levaton was trying to go across to him. Staz rode Levaton halfway then attacked him. Staz made the juncture, Levaton didn't. With Staz up the road, AWfoSho repeatedly frustrated the field's attempts to chase, shutting down everything that tried to go across. Staz and Huffman doggedly clung to a slim lead until the last lap when Huffman escaped Staz's clutches and soloed to victory. Staz crossed second and AWfoSho EASILY mopped up the field sprint for third...

Staz is an enigma. The boy cleans up the 3's, but can't crack the nut that is junior racing. Rumor has it that he finished 2nd at Nevada City in the 3's earlier today... taking the field sprint but with a solo artist up the road. However, in all of his attempts at junior racing he has won but once... a tiny little affair at Berkeley Hills with a field of four a few years back. Staz knows that we really don't count that one... but danged the boy can ride a 3's race. El Gigante better hurry up with those last few points or Staz is gonna get a mandatory and move on without him.