Vance Russell
Snelling-Hell of the Central Valley! Well that’s what one race flyer said and the weather certainly helped the moniker. I awoke that morning to pelting rain and gusting winds. Determined to race “Belgian Style” I was going to go no matter what. A few calls came in while I was getting ready-some teammates already canceling. I figured a lot of other people would cancel as well and if we showed up that meant fewer people at the start. During the entire ride south on I-5 the winds and rain continued. Dave Taillon said “The storm’s heading north. By the time we get down there it will have passed.” We remained hopeful. But then, we got a call from a teammate (who will remain unnamed!) who had driven down, but didn’t race because the conditions were awful. We drove on anyway, thinking and chanting “…must race in rain, we love rain” over and over.
I wasn’t particularly ready to race when the time came, having spent my warm-up in the car. The rains slowed and then miraculously stopped at the start. Most of us were heartened that DBC had 9 racers at the start of the 35+ 4/5 race-no other team had more than 1 racer. I told myself it would now be fun.
I had actually vowed after racing with one other teammate in the previous year at Snelling to come back with numbers. It was windy that year, although not quite as much as this year, and the pack sometimes hovered around 14 mph-painfully slow. The sprinters just tucked in and had their day at the finish-a too often repeated result.
Today was different. Attacks started on the first lap of 4 in the 50 mile race. I had planned on going much later, but with all the action, I was caught up in the moment. Soon, Rich Boettner and I were off the front. My legs were reeling from lack of a warm-up and we couldn’t make much happen. The peloton caught us and I thought I would just rest for a while. For some reason, at the start of the second lap, I found myself off the front with another racer. He said “Let’s go!” Not being my teammate, I just got on his wheel and let him pull. Daryn Dodge soon joined us and took a big pull, dropping the other rider. Soon enough Rich joined us along with two other riders. The wind was brutal and constant.
Meanwhile in the peloton…Rick Parks, Jim Frink and Will Brieger were doing some valiant blocking and covering breaks. Hal Sloane and Gilbert Khachadourian tried to bridge up to our group of four with Gilbert making it to the break. So we were now a group of 6-4 DBC riders-quickly gaining ground on the peloton. By the end of the lap, the peloton was barely visible and _ lap later they had disappeared. The break and the wind had helped to disintegrate the peloton and riders dropped out or broke into smaller groups. Rick and Will’s work blocking helped tremendously.
I wasn’t feeling great, having never got my nice slow warm-up so tried to sit on our opponents wheels and make them take more pulls than our riders. This technique worked for the most part. Fortunately, my teammates were riding well. I nearly was dropped a couple of times but Rich pulled and pushed me back in-the more the better for us. On the last lap, Daryn attacked, I was dropped and got back on. Then Rich attacked and I was blown. Daryn, Gilbert, and Rich led it in to finish 1,2,3! I soloed in, pushing myself all out with the fear that a group would catch me. They didn’t and I placed 6th. Our other riders came in at 9th,13, 15 and 16-we had a great day and riding with such generous teammates was an awesome experience!