Gateway Cup - NE

St Louis, Missouri, USA, September 3-6, 2004

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Stage 1 - September 3: Lafayette Square

Schmatz & Kelly take weekend opener

By John Musselman, www.stlbiking.com

St. Louis' Gateway Cup is billed as the largest Labor Day Bicycle Race in the Midwest United States. This annual event gave over 450 racers the opportunity to test their skills against the best in their peer groups during four grueling Criteriums in as many venues. But everyone's interest was glued to the Pro 1, 2 events, as the benchmark was made by the arrival of Olympian Jason McCartney and John Lieswyn of the Health Net Team from Colorado. The Health Net team is also well known here because Dan Schmatz is from St. Louis. Wisconsin's Frank Pipp, Elite men's US criterium champion with his Endeavour Cycling Team was also onboard along with the Mercy Cycling team out of Arkansas.

The first event was a night race out historic Lafayette Square. The atmosphere at the course was screaming "it's time to party" because the pros were not starting until well after darkness completely covered the wide flat four-left turn course. During an earlier race a nude non-racer was spotted riding his bike down the course wearing an Afro wig to hide his identity to complete the festive event.

Just after 9:00 PM the Pro 1, 2 racers was called to the starting line and the main attraction was under way. John Lieswyn and Brice Jones along with Frank Pipp broke away early. They kept a 15 second spread between themselves and the field but never got the killer time span they were trying to achieve. The field hung tough working together never wanting to lose sight of the lead group.

Entering the third turn of the next to last lap the field's effort paid off and finally swallowed up the lead breakaway group. It was a hellish sprint during the last lap as everyone dug deep to find whatever strength they left to burn. Out of the darkness to take the win was sprinter and home town hero Health Net/Maxxis rider Dan Schmatz followed by Frank Pipp and Bob Quinn.

Earlier in the evening, Kori Kelly out of Louisville, Colorado riding for Genesis Scuba made it an easy no contest taking 1st place in the Women's Pro race. It was to be the beginning of an outstanding weekend for Kelly. Local Rider, Carrie Cash riding for Team Revolution took second followed by Kerry Soraci,

Results

Pro/1/2 Men 
 
1 Dan Schmatz
2 Frank Pipp
3 Bob Quinn
4 Zach Reed
5 Joe Hill
6 Tracy Smith
7 Aaron Swatters
8 Brad Huff
9 Peter Knoop
10 Kurt Fletcher
11 Jeff Hartman
12 Wes Hartman
13 Rory McAdams
14 Drew Detels
15 Tomas Adamec
16 Brian Jensen
17 Eric Warnsman
 
Pro/1/2/3 Women 
 
1 Kori Kelly
2 Carrie Cash
3 Kerry Soraci
4 Heather Brice
5 Trudy Van Der Straaten
6 Sarah Tillotlsun
7 Anne Meyer
8 Mindi Martin
9 Julie Tatar
10 Stacey Bertsch