Kicking off 2011!

Mineral Wells Stage Race

Mineral Wells, TX

February 26 & 27, 2011

A Great Start: This past weekend several members of the Green Machine headed south to Mineral Wells, Texas to take part in the Mineral Wells Stage Race and, more importantly, get our season started.  The Mineral Wells Stage Race is a points based stage race, meaning that each rider must finish each stage in order to participate in the next one and must complete all the stages to be eligible to contend for the Overall.  Being our first race of the season, we were all a tad bit nervous to see what our fitness looked like stacked against some of Texas' finest.  Not completing a stage or getting to move on wasn't a topic any of us wanted to talk about on the ride home.

The weekend kicked off with a 7:30 a.m. crit in which we would race for 45 minutes.  The course was fairly clean and smooth with the exception of some rough patches on the backside but otherwise made for a great crit course.  There was also a short but steep hill as you rounded the second turn that would become a key spot for maintaining or improving your position.  The race began just as everyone anticipated it would, fast.  With this being the first crit of the season for many it was a nice wake up call to your legs and lungs.  Time started to fly by, lap after lap and before we knew it the bell was rung and the final lap was underway.  As we made the first right hand turn a burst of green went down the side as Andy surged to get a gap on the field before hitting the hill.  It worked and he was at the front with only two men ahead of him who had somehow managed to sneak off somewhere just prior to the bell lap.  Andy was able to hold strong up front with only one other racer passing him at the line and pull off a great 4th place finish, Chad held onto 10th & Jacob crossed the line in 20th bringing DNA Racing three top 20's in it's first race of the season.  But wait, the fun doesn't stop there...there's still a 7.5 mile Time Trial to do in a few hours.

Trials of Life: Long steep uphills & screaming descents summarize this 7.5 mile time trial.  Speeds as low as 12 mph and as high as almost 50 mph seemed to be the norm.  To drive the course or to not drive the course?  That was the question.  After tossing the idea around a little we decided to take a little drive.  Andy had a little concern because of the hills but also knew that he would make up some time on the down hills and hoped it would balance out.  Not only did it balance out but Andy also turned the fastest time in our category winning the stage and also putting is in first place for the GC and the Team Competition.

One More Day, One More Race: Going into the road race we had a plan.  A very simple plan, do not let any of the other top four GC contenders get up the road.  The points were only within a few separating 1st place & 4th place and we were going to do everything we could to hold onto our points.  Within the first few miles of the race a break was up the road but with none of the GC's in it we sat, watching and waiting.  After about five miles or so the attacks started, 4th in GC didn't have a team but is a member of the Czech National Team and also a great kid.  He took it on himself to try to go off the front and each time he did Chad went with him.  It seemed like every mile or so he would fire off the front trying to get some sort of a gap.  We would grab his wheel, he'd go for a little bit and look back and then sit up and we'd go back to the peloton.  About midway through the first lap Jacob flatted and had to drop back and wait for the wheel truck.  This left us with two, Chad & Andy and with three other GC contenders in the field.  Fortunately for us, two of those contesting the GC were content with sitting in and shadowing Andy.  Denis, from the Czech team, wasn't ready to just sit and threw down his strongest attack as we started up the climb.  Chad countered and was able to stay on his wheel and the attack ended as they crested the top and rejoined the peloton.  The second lap was a little less attack filled and seemed more like positioning in the peloton and out of the wind became more of a factor.  Everything changed with 1K to go though and soon the guys you hadn't seen all day started to shuffle around.  As we approached the line we could see another field of racers near the finish line and also a police car that seemed to be stopped in the middle of the road.  The paced picked up and soon we were at the 200m point, Chad had Andy on his wheel and was hoping for the craziest looking leadout ever but at 150m's that changed as everyone had to swerve out from behind the police car.  Chad crossed the line in 7th & Andy in 11th.  It was a great result from our team, second in the field sprint, a top ten, a top 15 and each member pulling their weight to contribute to the cause.

We left Mineral Wells 2nd & 10th in the Overall GC, won the Team Competition and won a Stage.  Not a bad weekend of racing to kick off the 2011 season.  Even more importantly than the results, we had a great time and as always enjoyed the comradery amongst our team and with some of the others in the region.