Testing out what rental cars are made of. That’s what we are currently doing in upstate NY. We are wondering what will happen if we e-braked the Pontiac minivan at 80mph on the NY thruway. Or what would happen if we drove it off the edge of the road into a field, at 45mph. All things that we will just have to keep wondering, because we don’t have the guts to try, or it’s the common sense not to try it.
We just got finished with the Rochester NRC crit. The last two NRC crits that we did differed drastically. In Minnesota the third stage was a flat 6-corner crit. The women’s crit was delayed earlier in the evening because of heavy thunderstorms, heavy enough that storm drain manhole covers popped off near the course because of too much water. The rain stopped, as we were getting ready to race. As soon as we started it began to rain, and then quickly turned into an all out thunderstorm, booming thunder and lightning and all. 17-minutes into the race they called last lap, after the leaders crossed the line. It was nuts, a 17 minute crit in a severe thunderstorm. Transition that to last night. 2hrs of 28mph avg speed on a challenging course, tons of attacking and breakaways, and perfect weather. In the end the field was shrunken down to about 40 riders and the race came down to a bunch kick, and Schmatz got in for second place. We had tons of great support at the race from local Kodak employees, so it was a bummer that we could not win the race for them. Another little side not, I wish that USADA did more testing, a lot more. That’s all I am going to say about that right now.
Back to the rental car subject. I just heard this quote come out my teammates mouth, “If your gonna do something crazy, it has to involve that cemetery over there.” And it looks as though common sense has prevailed again, as we continue on the paved road.
My good friend Ian Dille is not racing this year and is living down in his hometown of Austin. One of his writing jobs that he has is reviewing new cars for the Austin newspaper there. It sounds like a fun gig. Here is my first car review, done with rentals, I will have Ian give it a read and let me know how it is.
The Pontiac minivan, not so good. The Kia minivan, very good. Surprised? So were we, but its true.
Next up is Fitchburg, a classic stage race with a lot of tradition and one of my favorites.
Talk to you later,