AV Weekly Update: The Last 94 Friday Night at Hellyer, 8.26 Alto Velo Results AV Women's Team Pursuit (Linda Elgart, Jill Gianettoni, Tara Spangler, Heather Thompson), 1st, Women's District Championship John Elgart, 1st, Mas 40 Omnium Mark Rodamaker, 4th, Mas 40 Omn Dan Theodore, 5th, Mas 40 Omn Jill Gianettoni, 2nd, Wom Omn Linda Elgart, 4th, Wom Omn Ken George, 6th, District Points Race x This was the District Championship Team Pursuit for Women, a rather obscure title, but one contested by three teams -- that's 12 women! Not bad for track. And Alto Velo turned a terrific ride coming from 5 seconds down on the Babes on Bikes team (their name, not mine -- I would never refer to women as "babes") to win by a slim, slim .4 seconds. The AV team, which consisted of Linda Elgart, Jill Gianettoni, Tara Spangler, and last minute pickup Heather Thompson, quickly fell behind the pace that had been set by BoB. Their lap times were: 29, 25.8, 27.2, 28, 27.6, 28.3 (way slow, eh?), 27.7, 27.6, 27.0, 26.9, 26.6, 25.3. In other words, AV negative split the last 6 laps to claw their way back. BoB, which was powered by Lynne Scannell, Bettina Romer, Nina Ostereicher (sp??) and someone else who was dropped, had gone 5:27.5 by means of a fast start. After one kilo, AV was down about 4 seconds. And after 3 kilos we were down 5. But while BoB had faltered at the end, AV charged. That last lap 25.3 was ledby Tara Spangler, who actually rode the last lap and a half at the front. I had AV at 5:27.1. x Incidentally, 14 women showed up to race on the last Friday night. That's about as many the number of Pro12's who show for some NorCal criteriums! x Friday was the Senior Men's Points District Championship, which was won by National Bronze Medalist Brian Whitcomb, certainly a deserved victory as Brian was driving the pack hard the last 25 laps. He finished two laps up on the field. AV's Ken George, the 30+ Points Champ, took 6th with a lap up. Last year's defending champ, Freddie Markham, looked wasted from his recent trip to Monaco for the NCL Worlds. It is nice to see someone besides FFM winning the points races! x This was the final Friday and AV captured several Best All Year awards. I again won the 40+ series. Mark Rodamaker was 2nd in this series. Jill Gianettoni was first in the Women's Points Series. Linda and Tara were also in there somewhere. I also took second to Markham in the Don Walker Frame Points competition. This competition primarily depended on whether Don was around to toss points to your field, and on this final Friday I passed Larry Nolan, who had been in 2nd, when the 40+ field was showered with prime points. Thanks uncle Don. Jill wound up 4th or 5th in Frame Points. In other divisions, the best Senior rider was FFM, the best 30+ Don Langley. As for Most Improveds, the AV Braintrust vote is for Mark Rodamaker in 40+. 30+ we're not too sure, but unimproved might go to our Alistair Adams who got frequent flyer miles this year instead of track miles. For Senior Men it goes to Whitcomb. For Women it's a tie between Tara and Jill. Most improved Junior trackie is Basil with a nod to Brian DeRouen and Nate Pierce. Junior women -- hey, we only have one on the track! Masters women -- is there a category for this? Well, Linda showed a lot of improvement at the end of the season. x The 94 Hellyer season as a whole was a fairly good one with ridership up and the quality of riders also up. This is more than road can say. Spectator attendance, however, was a bit off. As has been said many times, we have a great product, but we need to promote our selves a little better. We'd like to express our thanks to Casey Kerrigan for promoting, announcing, and in general keeping the track together. Without Casey, there would not be much of a racing program here. Also thanks to Al Clark and Specialized for sponsoring Friday night. Back to top of page Back to 94 results index Back to results archive home page casey@caseykerrigan.com