MABRA Cross Championships and Series Decided at Taneytown

By Bill Schieken, Cyclocross Editor

The MABRA Cyclocross Championship took place Sunday, November 29 at Taneytown Memorial Park, Taneytown, Md. Presented by T.E.A.M. Fuji, G.S. Silver and Silver Cycles, the MABRA finale was also the Delaware and Maryland/DC state championship race.

Last year, the MABRA Championship race occurred in a steady downpour and temperatures in the high thirties. Despite warm and dry weather, it seemed as if some of the muddy conditions from last year remained. “We were very happy with the event and of course were thrilled to have the better weather,” lead promoter Tracy Lea said. “But it is cross and we ( promoters and racers) all have to be prepared to have less than great weather and tough course conditions and still have a smile on our collective faces at the end of the day.”

Lea said that as a promoter she wanted the sun and not a lot of mud and as a racer, she certainly did not want mud. “But we do have racers who are ‘mudders,’” Lea said. “Yesterday’s conditions served up stuff that the fast guys like and some tough mud holes that the mudders dream about—so a pretty even day, fair to both types of racers.” The only racers left out of the mix were climbers. “The hill riders were left off the list of those who maybe liked our course,” Lea said. “But we just came off of some hillier races, so I think that it was okay not to have a climber’s race.”

One of the more challenging features of last year’s course was absent from this year’s edition. Lea explained that they left off the off-camber switchbacks because the course already had plenty of slow stuff with the mud “so there was no need to throw in any tricky, course slowing sections,” Lea said. “We needed to have a few ‘rest’ areas and that spot was one of them.”

Juniors get a lesson in when run and when to ride.

Throughout the day each race featured a number of different subplots. The most obvious was who would best the competition and win the MABRA Championship race. Just as intriguing was the series point race that was still undecided in many categories. Beyond that state championships in several age and race level categories were also up for grabs.

For the elite women, Jennifer Maxwell (ATAC Sportswear/Bike Rack DC) and Lenore Pipes (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes) battled all season long for the series lead. Maxwell came on strong the past couple weeks and only needed to finish the race to take the series. That result on a tricky, slick course was not a given. In fact, Maxwell’s day almost ended on the first lap. “I got an average start but fell onto the large sharp rocks at the first 180 degree turn after the start,” Maxwell recounted. “I was pretty concerned when I fell on my back into the jagged rocks and then the race was uphill from there as Arley [Kemmerer] took complete control.”

While Maxwell’s day almost ended early, Kemmerer’s day almost never started. The Hub Racing speedster was caught off guard by the muddy conditions on a sunny, warm race day. “I wasn't prepared for the conditions at all yesterday. I had no idea it would be muddy, I didn't bring any of my mud equipment—pit tools, mud shoes, etc.,” Kemmerer said. “It wasn't until I was about four miles from the race that I saw a muddy bike on a roof, completely saturated, and I thought, ‘ohhhh man, this isn't good!’” At that point, she wasn't sure if she would race.

“My legs have been feeling super tired lately, and I haven't had a good day on the bike in over two weeks,” Kemmerer explained. “I was concerned that another muddy, messy race would shred the last bits of my legs that still remained.” After consulting her coach, Josef Brandauer, Kemmerer decided to try a warm-up lap and ended up feeling pretty good. So she figured she’d line-up and give it a go.

Despite issues clipping in, Kemmerer got a great start and hit the muddy bottleneck fast and in the front. With mayhem ensuing behind her, she powered ahead and opened an early gap on the field. “It was probably an unleashing of two weeks worth of frustration, but I just took off, tried to keep calm and not make any stupid moves, and not panic at the first sign of muscle fatigue.”

Elite women at the early bottleneck.

Kemmerer said she made “a bunch of mistakes on the first lap,” including not dismounting quick enough in the muddy sections. This may have kept the pursuers close for a while but Kemmerer smoothed out the mistakes as the race went on. “I was really focused on how hard I could push myself and still finish the race—it was really about racing myself to see where I'm at,” Kemmerer said “I definitely wasn't feeling one-hundred percent, but felt much better than I did a week ago. Hopefully I can sustain that for two more weeks [MAC final and Nationals].”

With Kemmerer securing victory in the race, the battle for the series was still on the course. Maxwell recovered from her early crash but was hurting. “I pretty much suffered the whole race but was happy to take second in the race and to win the MABRA Series,” Maxwell said. “Arley had a strong race along with Lenore who chased me the whole race and came in for third. I enjoyed racing with Elizabeth [Harlow], Libby [Sheldon], Amy [Breyla], Lenore, and Julie [Kuliecza] this season—they were all great competition the whole series.”

Kemmerer on her way to victory.

Behind Pipes, Sheldon (T.E.A.M. Fuji) finished the race in fourth and Breyla (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes) completed the podium, taking the fifth spot.

In the men’s elite event, five racers had a realistic chance of winning the series competition. For the last half of the MABRA series Haymarket Bicycles/HomeVisit and C3-Athletes Serving Athletes have been engaged in a weekly battle for victory, with ALAN North America Cycling always in the mix. The top men from those three squads knew that a victory in this race would also secure the overall championship.

Last weekend at Rockburn, Wes Schempf (C3-Athletes Serving Athletes) was on a mission to go as hard and fast as he possibly could. It seems that whatever motivated him to go from the gun in that race had not dissipated. Once again, Schempf took control of the race early and never looked back.

“This was probably the most exciting last race I've been a part of for some time,” Schempf said. “There were five guys including myself who had a chance of winning the series with this race.” Schempf said that he approached the day with the intention of racing to win and that having teammate Andy Wulfkuhle there to work for him was an added bonus.

Before lining up and scorching the start, Schempf only did one lap on the course prior to warming up. He said that he avoided most of the really mucky parts but paid attention to what lines the Master's were taking. Being a crafty veteran racer, he also gained an edge by knowing who to be near during the warm-up period. Schempf said that he followed masters elite podium finisher Randy Root (Evolution) around before the Women's race as he was showing lines to someone else.

In ‘Cross racing a good start is important. At Taneytown it is crucial. “The start for this race was key as there was a short bit of pavement before a definite bottleneck,” Schempf explained. “I got a good position behind Dave Weaver (ALAN) and then took a better line through the really wet part before the little embankment and was able to ride it cleanly.” Being at the front allowed the top five riders to get a gap on the rest of the field.

After getting through the start clean, Schempf said it came down to picking good lines and trying to keep the pace as high as possible.. Joe Dombrowski (Haymarket/HomeVisit) was the only one who kept pace through the second lap, but a hard crash took the eighteen-year-old out of contention. Wulfkuhle took advantage of that mishap and jumped into second, while Schempf punched it and put the nails in the coffin for everyone else. 

Schempf crossed the finish line with a sizable lead, securing both the top step on the podium and the championship series. Wulfkuhle followed his teammate in for second. Greg Wittwer (ALAN) took third place and Jared Nieters (Haymarket/HomeVisit) came home for fourth. Adam Driscoll (Adventures for the Cure) capped off an impressive first season in the elite field with another podium spot, finishing fifth.

Although the MABRA series has ended, the DC metro region gets to play host to one more big ‘cross race. The Capital ‘Cross Classic serves as the MAC Championship and takes place Sunday, November 6 at Lake Fairfax in Reston, Virginia. This is always a great event to race and spectate as some of the East Coast’s top riders fine-tune their form going in to Nationals the following week.

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photo credits: Bill Schieken. More at www.cxhairs.com/photos.

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GamJams Cyclocross Editor Bill Schieken races for Route1Velo/Arrow Bicycle. He is also the editor of In The Crosshairs.