1st Place OVERALL
Pro/Expert Men
JOHN MacINNIS
SOBE / HEADSHOK

IRON HILL CHALLENGE
August 5, 2001

The First State Velo Sport team did a wonderful job handling more racers than ever at the Iron Hill Challenge - Mid-Atlantic Super Series #7. The heat and the competition was intense. The battle for first place team has really heated up as Wooden Wheels (2,730pts) continues to close in on Guy's Bicycles (2,859pts). Wooden Wheels looks to be within striking distance of a number one team result come September 30th trailing Guy's Bicycles by just 129pts. They have upset Guy's on all three "home turf" events - Fair Hill, Granogue and Iron Hill. However, Guy's Bicycles continues to lead and doesn't look like an easy target but with three more races left in the Super Series anything can happen.

Some thought it was the best Iron Hill course ever with the inclusion this year of new singletrack which increased the length of a lap to approximately six miles. The course was well marked and well thought out to include all of the best features of the park while allowing for adequate parking. Everything about this race showed that the hard work and smart planning of the First State Velo Sport team was worth the effort.

Things went so smoothly that results were online immediately after the event on the First State Velo Sport website - http://del.net/org/fsvs/content/events/FSVS Iron Hill Challenge Results.html. Thank you Sky Marsh and Andrew Hogg for all of those fancy results complete with team member results at a glance.

Brent Biddle and crew did a phenomenal job handling all of those nasty promoter problems (like concerns about payouts) and was very generous paying the pros six deep. Brent was gracious enough to make some "on the fly" adjustments and even opened sealed envelopes in an effort to make everyone happy. He didn't forget about the Senior I Expert group either. From start to finish FSVS was a perfect race promoter role model.

The spectators seemed to be having a great time. They had lawn chairs set up on top of the steep section of the Mega-dip (a steep downhill followed by an immediate uphill)..... there were people taking pictures, ringing cowbells, and cheering on their favorite racers as they went by. Iron Hill is great for spectating as there are several vantage points not far from the start.

John MacInnis - SOBE/Headshok was the fastest man of the day. John has made an impressive comeback from very serious injuries sustained a few years ago after being struck by a car while riding his bike. It's amazing that he is still riding........

He conserved energy by not powering out of the turns with the other top riders for the first part of the race - then at the start of the climb up from the I-95 straight-away he attacked and made it stick clocking in almost two minutes in front of second place Jason Moore - Moore's/Reinhardt. Jed Schober - unattached managed to finish third after flatting with less than 3 miles to go.

Katie Compton - TREK / VW / JBL was the fastest women racer of the day. Katie rode steady and strong and decided to keep going and do an extra lap (just for fun).

The fastest Expert racer was Ralph Kline - Gettysburg Bicycle who clocked in at just under two hours. He is also in the Senior II 27-34 age group. Iron Hill was just a "walk in the park" to this guy as he is used to the technical and challenging trials of Michaux State Forest near Gettysburg, Pa. Robert Campos - Byron Lake Schwinn placed second and David Averill - Team Kaos third in this group.

Phillip Wayne - Hive Bicycles took first place Senior I 19-26 EXPERT Men. Series leader Ed Bush - Guy's Bicycles was second at 1:30 back with Jarett Sweeney - JAMA third 3:42 back.

Blair Saunders - Team Delaware hammered the Expert Veteran Men's field with a strong finish. Greg (Fergie) Ferguson - Somerset Wheelmen brought home second place with series leader Jay Dodge - Guy's Bicycles third. In hot pursuit directly behind Jay was the crazed Wooden Wheels singlespeed freak Todd Forrest and right behind him........ Jay's teammate second place in series points Yong Kong - Guy's Bicycles.

Expert Junior Men racer Joey Thompson - Wooden Wheels looked spent the first two laps as he mentioned while racing that he felt like #^%& the first two times I saw him out on the trail while I was taking pictures. Meanwhile Chris Kuhl - Gettysburg Bikes was having his own troubles with loose spokes having to stop and smack his rim against a tree to get it to stop rubbing the frame. Joey recovered in the latter part of the race and caught up to the series leader who mistakenly started to go left for an extra lap just before the finish. Joey took advantage of this and outsprinted Chris into the finish winning with just two seconds to spare. While most racers moving up to Expert from Sport have a very tough time (myself included), Joey seems to have that Lance Armstrong will to win and the training habits to continue his winning ways which is quite rare.

Karen Henry - Team Harrisburg had an impressive run taking the number one spot for the Expert 30+ Women. What's most impressive is that Karen was only ONE minute behind the ever fast Kristine Oesterling - Gettysburg Bicycle the series Senior 29under Expert Women leader. Jennifer Duncan - Snow Valley must have lightened up on her drinking and smoking for this race (click here for her racer profile picture) finishing up with a second place for team Snow Valley in the 30+ Expert Women field. Second place in the 29under was earned by the 2000 Wye Mills AMBC winner Christine Clay - Wissahickon Cyclery.

The 45+ Expert Men's race was quite an affair. From the start Mark (Fuzzy) Nickerson - Wooden Wheels took off like a madman. He hates the heat but rode with the fury of Bruce Lee the entire race. Bill Gentile - Lebanon Valley Velo and Bob Sauer - Guy's Bicycle (Series leader going into Iron Hill) were all within seconds of each other until Bob flatted the last lap and it was Fuzzy and Bill Gentile (who did a road race two days before this event) battling it out for the last lap. Mr. Nickerson helped by several women (see his interview) hung on until the finish scoring 50 points for Wooden Wheels with Bill Gentile in very hot pursuit crossing the line just five seconds back for second place. Steve Laverty was third and Bob Sauer - Guy's Bicycle after flatting finished up fourth.

Tom Dopkin (unattached) held off another fiercely competitive group in the Senior I SPORT Men's race. The lead pack all finished within an incredibly close 30 seconds of first place. Clay Fawthorp - Cycle Fit was second, David Garwood - Team AMF Dexterious third, Nick Zohdi - Towson University fourth and trying to bridge the gap less than 2 minutes back from this group was Anthony Valenzalano - BikeSport ending up in fifth place.

WHITE HAVEN
CHALLENGE
RAIN OR SHINE

Registration

Registration 7pm-9pm SATURDAY NIGHT
(Lehigh Gorge St. Park)

8am to 11am SUNDAY No need to pre-register......

START TIMES
12:00PM

DIRECTIONS

Lehigh Gorge State Park - FOLLOW SIGNS TO RACE

Exit 40 Interstate 80 -
From Philadelphia take turnpike north to Pocono exit- 80 west to exit 40- RT.940 east to Downtown White Haven.

From New Jersey / Water Gap take 80 west to exit 40 -RT.940 east to Downtown White Haven.

From Harrisburg take 81 north to 80 east to exit 40 -RT.940 east to Downtown White Haven.

From Scranton take 81 south to 80 east to exit 40 -RT.940 east to Downtown White Haven.

Course crosses through Lehigh Gorge State Park-into State Game land 149-about 90% tight & twisty single track & 10% fast rolling dual track. The course has 2 tough climbs 1.5 miles to 2.5 miles each. This is a old school course - meaning that it is 1 lap -it's a riders course!
Experts 1 lap 20 miles
Sport 1 lap 20 miles
Beginner 1 lap 10 miles

Not to be outdone for competitive spirit were the three fastest overall Sport racers. Senior II 27-34 racers Coleman Devlin (unattached) finished in 1:37:22 with second place Michael Ging (unattached) 1: 15 back and Michael Keller right on his heels at 1:20 back. Norman Zellers - Kryptonite held off all but three of these series supermen as he rolled in for a fourth place finish. Special mention goes to Dan Chopko - Wooden Wheels (see picture top of this column) who placed a very respectable 7th with very little training this year.

It wasn't enough for First State Velo to run a flawless race. They also sent out their top Sport women racers who absolutely dominated the field. Top overall Sport woman was Vet/Master Lisa Vible - FSVS at 1:58:09 who had enough energy to smile for her picture immediately after finishing. 1st Place Senior 29under was teammate Nicol Kowal at 1:59:04. Karen Minor - Wooden Wheels came in second place Vet/Master finishing up in 2:01:19. Caitlyn Tuel - Shirk's Bikes earned a second place in Senior 29under at 2:07:15.

Esteban Rodriguez - Sid's Bikes (NYC) continued his winning ways as series leader in the Sport Veteran Men's group. Holding off 42 racers with the top four within 35 seconds of each other at the end earning Mr. Rodriguez yet another top of the podium view.

First Place Sport Junior Men Matt Christie (unattached) came across the line in 1:48:25 just 21 seconds in front of second place Matt Hayes - BikeSport with Adam Beattie - FSVS placing third with a time of 1:49:44. Series leader Jim Holeva finished 6th place in 1:57:29.

Rory Carolan - Extreme was first, Robert Hutton - Chain Gang second, and John Thompson - Wooden Wheels third in the Sport Master 45-49 Men's race.

Chris Hinman - No Cents Racing found plenty of reasons to keep racing with a first place finish in the Sport Master II 50+ Men. Gel King - (unattached) was second with Randy Hitchens - FSVS third. Series leader Vincent Aloyo - Mainline Cycling was fourth with Andrew McDermott - Wooden Wheels fifth.

Series points leader in the Beg Senior II 27-34 Men Chris Yanavich - AMF Racing was the fastest Beginner of the day taking first place Sen. II Beginner Men. Chaz Ross - Cedar Bikes was first place Sen. I Beginner Men. Brian Smith - (unattached) took first place Beginner Vet Men in a field of 36, series points leader Rob Wasch - Cedar Bikes continued his winning ways with a first place in the Beginner Junior Men's race. George Bressler - (unattached) won first place Master I 45-49 Beginner Men even after crashing into an uncooperative racer who would not let him by.

Second place in series points John Fuchs - Wissahickon Cyclery took first place upsetting series leader Ken Fretz - (unattached) in the Beginner Master II 50+ Men's race. Ken came in second maintaining his lead. Second in series points Carrie Lauchman - (unattached) earned a first place in Beginner Junior Women over current series leader Katherine Morgan-Fiser - Jersey Action Riders who finished up second. Lori Fulmer - Team Harrisburg Beginner Senior 29under Women who is way out front in series points proved unstoppable taking first place with almost 12 minutes to spare. Claire Hayes - (unattached) won the Vet/Master Beginner Women's race outlasting the rest of the field which had a 50% DNF ratio.

All in all it was a great day of racing and perhaps the smoothest super series race so far. Hats off to all of the people that made this such a well run event.