by Ruth Stornetta, legendary local promoter
What a beautiful day for a bike race! Mild temperatures, low humidity and a pleasant breeze greeted the racers who lined up for the Chesapeake Criterium on August 14, 2010 on the short course around the Chesapeake Municipal Center. Thanks to the efforts of Velo Racing Virginia and race organizer Christina Teeuwen at gathering sponsorships, the races were able to offer some great prizes which made for very competitive racing with lots of participants. The generous support of the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center allowed Ms. Teeuwen to offer big cash purses for the top mens’ and womens’ fields with competitors traveling from as far away as Illinois to compete. The other sponsors included the City of Chesapeake Parks and Recreation, Kettler, Hyatt Place Hotel Greenbrier, BikeBeat, Sthil, The Atlanta Braves,No Frill Grill, Special Events, McDonalds and Bank of Hampton Roads.
All sizes, shapes, ages and both men and women had races tailored for them with the age 50 and older racers leading off the day. Dave Clarke of Team Nature's Path/3 Sports won the 50+ race from a field sprint.
The women were next on the line. Local favorite B.J. Samuel led the race off with a couple of fast laps before Jennifer Rasmussen of Team Kenda took a flyer off to establish a solo breakaway for many laps. Rasmussen was hunted down by the hungry field but still managed to win the hotly contested field sprint against Emily Joyner of Team Asset Group/ TWR to take the win.
The juniors’ race is always a lot of fun with boys and girls racing together and all the juniors from the 10 year-olds to the 18 year-olds put on a great show with some heart-felt efforts. They were all winners as far as the crowd was concerned!
Riders from North Carolina, Maryland, DC Northern Virginia and even Holland and Australia, as well as our “usual suspects” from the local Virginia clubs lined up for the race for ages 30-49. This group followed the script laid down in the womens’ race as Ryan Simpson got into a solo breakaway that was chased down but still prevailed to get away at the very end and win the race.
This year the kids’ races were very popular with dozens of kids aged 2-5 and 6-9 racing their trikes, mountain bikes, bikes with streamers and baskets and training wheels on the same course as the pro racers (although they only did a short part of the lap). All the kids had a great time including two very competitive 5 year olds who kept racing each other around an extra whole lap after they had already crossed the finish line! McDonald’s provided much appreciated free ice cream coupons for the all the kids who participated.
The celebrity race had only two contestants, Kelvin Wright, Chief of Police for the City of Chesapeake, and Beth Reitz of the Chesapeake Regional Medical Center. Beth bested Kelvin by only a wheel after a hotly contested one lap race.
The showcase event started with a salute to our area soldiers with the National Anthem played and all helmets off before the start of the PLT Pro,1,2,3 race. This race had several big teams competing including teams used to National level competition such as Team Type I (promoting diabetes research and awareness), Team Mountain Khakis out of North Carolina, the Battley Harley-Davidson team from the DC area and the Richmond Pro Cycling team. Early on in the 80 minute event, a group of 4 riders broke away from the field. The quartet of Dave LeDuc (a 59-year old former world and many-time national champion riding for Team Atlantic Velo), Pat Raines (Team Mountain Khakis), Mike Stoop (Richmond Pro Cycling) and Mason Haymes (Battley Harley-Davidson) held about a 30 second gap over the rest of the field. Pat Raines won the sprint from this group of 4 men with Mike Stoop coming second, Mason Haymes third and Dave LeDuc sitting up and letting the younger guys get the glory in the end.
It was a very successful race for all and helped showcase the healthy sport of cycling - a sport wide open to every age and inclination!
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