Results and Reports for April 30

Zand en Veen Rondomme

Netherlands, April 29, 2000

Results

1 Bart Boom (Ned) Lowik meubelen-AWV de Zwaluwen
2 Mathijs Loohuis (Ned) Oldenzaalse WCl
3 Marcel Alma (Ned) RTV Zwolle
4 Arno Kroes (Ned) RWC Ahoy
5 David Veenendaal (Ned) Cycle Club '75
6 Gerard Windhouwer (Ned) Alcmaria Victrix
7 Jens Mouris (Ned) De Bataaf
8 Ton Slippens (Ned) Alcmaria Victrix
9 Albert Schurer (Ned) WV Drachten
10 Arjan Bruins (Ned) RTV Zwolle
11 Frank Zwaneveld (Ned) NWV Groningen
12 Otmar Beltman (Ned) Lowik meubelen-AWV de Zwaluwen
13 Arjan Elferink (Ned) Lowik meubelen-AWV de Zwaluwen
14 Erik Dagelet (Ned) NWV Groningen
15 Richard Rijkens (Ned) Omega
16 Folkert de Haan (Ned) NWV Groningen
17 Marcel Nagengast (Ned) RTV Zwolle
18 Martijn Lust (Ned) De Volharding
19 Martijn Vos (Ned) NWV Groningen
20 Godert de Leeuw (Ned) WV Eemland
21 Bastiaan Krol (Ned) Oldenzaalse WCl
22 Anne van de Veen (Ned) WSV de Peddelaars
23 Mark Willems (Ned) WTC Roden
24 Richard Kooiman (Ned) BRC Kennemerland
25 Adri Frijters (Ned) WV Ede
26 Bart Beima (Ned) Dotec Machine fab Fr-Leeuw
27 Freddy van de Werff (Ned) Topteam Tegel Toko
28 Harm Bronkhorst (Ned) de Bollenstreek
29 Bert Anthonides (Ned) W.V. Olympia Heerenveen
30 Wobbe van de Kieboom (Ned) de Bollenstreek

Results courtesy of Dick Soepenberg

First Charter Criterium

Shelby, USA, April 28, 2000

By John Alsedek, cyclingnews.com correspondent

With NRC points and $21,000 in prizes available, most of the country's top professional squads came to Shelby, North Carolina with their top sprinters- Navigators brought Todd Littlehales; Saturn, Tony Cruz; Jelly Belly, Eddy Gragus; 7 UP/Colorado Cyclist, Kevin Monahan; Mercury, Gord Fraser. However, it was Jonas Carney of the Shaklee/Marin team who came up with his second win in as many years.

Wet conditions on Thursday night and early Friday morning left the riders a little leery, but the 1.4-kilometer course was dry by race time. After Mercury's Derek Bouchard-Hall clocked the fastest time in the one-lap Cleveland Eye Clinic Pole Position Challenge, the 10-rider Mercury squad continued to dictate the pace early on in the main event, with Michael Sayers, John Peters, and Roy Knickman making early solo moves that netted them a number of $100 and $200 primes and kept the average speed up around 30 mph.

Around the midway point, Peters and Mercury designated sprinter Fraser made a tactically questionable foray off the front (Knickman explained it afterwards by saying, "We wanted to have fun and make the race interesting"); while the duo gained as much as 16 seconds on the field, it didn't take long for Shaklee to take advantage of the situation - they took the front and let the duo dangle a bit before bringing them back with about ten laps to go. At that point, the pace got even faster, as Mercury moved most of their remaining riders to the front to set up Fraser's 'train'.

However, Shaklee was up to the challenge. after Dave McCook snagged the penultimate lap's $750 'Gamblers Prime', Carney took a flyer near the finish and won by three bike lengths over Navigators' Vassili Davidenko, with Fraser taking third.

John Lieswyn's report

Weather: wet roads and cool temperatures at start, dry by the finish. Pole Position 1 lap time trial for $500 won by Derek Bouchard Hall (Mercury) Top 10 times got on the first row at the start of the Criterium. None of us Shaklee guys did the pole position challenge as we wanted to save all our strength for the battle to come. Team sponsor Gardner Webb University is near Shelby and we wanted to impress them.

I got a front row start and whooped "I love bike racing!" like some kinda "Breaking Away" fan/nerd as we accelerated through the first turn. After 15 years of racing I still get such a rush out of it. (to all the people associated with the great movie "Breaking Away" please don't send me offended emails as this was meant complimentarily)

Mercury put us on the ropes straight away. I was thinking of my teammate Graeme Miller's oft said paraphrase of "The Sixth Sense" as there were sea foam green jerseys all over the front. I SEE GREEN PEOPLE. Outnumbered 10 to 2 they took nearly every $100 and $200 prime offered in the early going, and Roy Knickman (Mercury) got an early 10 second lead and earned a few hundred bucks for his efforts. He soon blew up in the head winds and came back to us. The first 7 laps we averaged over 30mph (50kph) and it took some time for Shaklee teammates Eric Wohlberg (aka Little Frank) Glen Mitchell, Sylvain Beauchamp (aka Pepe from the French skunk cartoon character) and Dave McCook (known as Chewie, from Star Wars due to his long hair years back, now just called Cookie) to join Graeme and I at the front.

Jonas was just hanging back waiting for the field sprint, and it was up to the rest of us to make sure he'd get one. Actually, he hadn't delivered at Santa Rosa or Austin, but the feeling was that his sprint was coming along soon. We'd see if we could get a good break we could win from or else set it up for Jonas at the end. Lap after lap Mercury had us outnumbered in the breaks and then we got a lucky situation. Gord and a Mercury teammate got away just the two of them and built a 20 second lead on us. This looked bad but was very good: as long as we got ourselves composed into a good chase train at the front of the pack and "feathered" the gap to the leaders, we could save our sprinter while Mercury's top sprinter was off the front using up his energy in a hopefully fruitless effort. Soon we had places 1-6 at the head of the field, setting a fast enough pace that the lead duo's time gap dropped into the 15 second range. They gave up after about ten laps.

The final 7 laps were really really fast, up to 32 mph average speed. Mercury had an awesome leadout train going with 4 laps to go until 1/2 lap to go, whereupon Graeme and Jonas did their thing. I was hurting bad back around 25th place, and couldn't see the action up front, but I did hear that our Cookie won the $750 2 laps to go Gambler Prime. Yeah Dave. Jonas fired out of the front of the dueling sprinters like he was shot from a cannon and won the bike race by 4 bikelengths, while Graeme held on for 7th. All in all, a very successful day. Here's hoping we can do it again tomorrow.

There's 1/2 the prizemoney available but Saturn US PRO Tour points are on the line, plus 10,000 plus screaming spectators. The Twilight holds special significance for me because back in '94 when I was with Coors Light team, I was having absolutely the race of my career when at 1/2 lap to go a drunk climbed over the barricades and stepped right out in front of my teammate Chris Huber and I as we led the pack out of the second turn. I suffered two compressed vertebrae and a dislocated shoulder in an accident that severely stunted my cycling career. In '97 I went back to Athens Twilight and finished 2nd (after Gord was DQ'd for using his hand to slingshot off Derek Bouchard Hall, then off Shaklee, during the last lap). While finishing 2nd in a bike race that cost me years was some kind of redemption, winning would be the ultimate...

Results - 82 km

1. Jonas Carney (USA) Shaklee/Marin
2. Vassili Davidenko (Ukr) Navigators
3. Gord Fraser (Can) Mercury
4. Kevin Monahan (USA) 7 UP/Colorado Cyclist
5. Eddy Gragus (USA) Jelly Belly
6. Antonio Cruz (USA) Saturn
7. Graeme Miller (NZL) Shaklee/Marin
8. Derek Bouchard-Hall (USA) Mercury
9. James Baledesare (USA) GoMart/West Virginia
10. Todd Littlehales (USA) Navigators
11. Roberto Gaggioli (Ita) DeFeet
12. Chris Pic (USA) Zaxby's
13. Franky Van Haesebroucke (Bel) Navigators
14. Juan-Carlos Pineda (Gua) 7 UP/Colorado Cyclist
15. Leigh Bryan (Aus) Australian National
16. Kirk Albers (USA) Jelly Belly
17. Chad Gerlach (USA) DeFeet
18. Jason Waddell (USA) Arlington Velo
19. Ryan Oelkers (USA) Scott/BiKyle/Flyers
20. Oscar Pineda (Gua) 7 UP/Colorado Cyclist
 
Results courtesy of Tom English