Race Report: Dawg Days of Summer

By Martin • August 23rd, 2010

After many months of training, racing and recovering — a process that was rinsed and repeated many times — the season came to something of an end this weekend with the Dawg Days of Summer Circuit Race in Bowie, MD. But unlike many other late-season races, this one was special in its own way — it was our race.

Well, let me be more specific. This is the second year we’ve worked with the crew from Artemis Racing to put on the circuit race, and it’s the second year it has gone off excellently. Artemis brought years of experience and a huge logistical capacity to the process of organizing the second installment of the race, and we couldn’t have picked a better team to learn the ropes from.

Coming into Sunday’s race, the weather wasn’t looking too encouraging — we were being promised 70 percent chance of rain and thunderstorms. And while it did rain on the early races and dump on the 1/2/3, the majority of the day’s races took place under cloudy, though dry skies.

On top of our day-of responsibilities — road guarding, manning registration and food sales, and driving the pace car — District Velocity Racing p/b The Bike Rack put riders in a number of the races. Michelle and Lisette survived a soggy early-morning women’s race, while Kevin, Chas, Grayson, and Seth jumped into the 35+ field. It was in this race that we saw some of the day’s true race excitement — Kevin jumped off the front of the pack with about 12 laps to go, gaining over 20 seconds on the field and coming within less than two laps of taking the victory. I watched the whole thing from the pace car, and it was an impressive show of strength and mental fortitude.

Brian S., Tony, Kevin, and I jumped into the fast 1/2/3 race, which was relatively uneventful spare the Indian monsoon that hit us a few laps in. It’s not an understatement to say that I’ve never raced in such objectively frightening conditions. For the better part of five laps, visibility was just above non-existent, and water pooled on large sections of the course. Thankfully, that the race course wasn’t particularly technical ensured that we all stayed upright during the drenching. The race was cut short due to lightning, but we all came out of it alive. That’s a victory in and of itself.

The Cat 4 race may have been one of the most exciting of the day. There were attacks and counter-attacks, and a breakaway even survived until the bitter end. Tom S. led out an early breakaway that seemed promising, but wasn’t to be. Jon tried his own flyer, while Marcus, Corey, Nate, Seth, Tom J. pushed the pace and closed gaps. Matt R. made it into a four-man break with a few laps to go, joined by NCVC’s Nick S. in the closing miles of the race. In the end, it was a three-man contest for the win, and Matt took second third to a hard-charging sprint from Nick. The rest of the DVR crew led out the field sprint, and though I haven’t yet seen the results, I’m pretty sure we took places six through 11.

All told, it was a great day to end the season on. Our most sincere thanks go to Artemis for letting us jump in and co-promote the race, and for everyone who showed up even when the weather radar would have encouraged you to stay home instead. We also owe a serious debt of gratitude to our friends and sponsors who kicked in for prizes and premes — Lyons and Sucher Advertising, The Bike Rack, View14, The Farm at Sunnyside, and Johnny’s Half Shell Restaurant. Thanks for everything.

A load of great race pics are available here.

Comments(3) Results

Comments

By nick on August 23rd, 2010 at 5:22 pm

you guys (along with artemis) put on a solid race. good times working with the DVR 4 crew to make every other team in the field unhappy to be there.

By Tim on August 23rd, 2010 at 11:42 pm

Hey those are a ton of great pics, did they or anyone (maybe you know if you guys helped organize) shoot pics during the Cat 5 race too?

By Chas on August 23rd, 2010 at 11:48 pm

Hey Tim, unfortunately, don’t think we had a photographer there for the 8am race. But you might check the mabra list to see if someone had taken photos and posted it to the community. You might also want to check gamjams as they do a round up the day (or two) after the race.

http://groups.google.com/group/mabra-uscf