State Crit Championship
Congrats to both Rick and Doug for a strong Aggress showing!
Report by Rick
Doug Perry and I traveled to Scottsdale to represent Aggress. It was a combined group with 12-14 total riders. On lap 2 (I think) Reg Dowdall (SW Hand, 60+) implemented a furious attack and no one pursued. I had no idea he was even gone off the front until people watching us started yelling “you’re 20 sec down, you’re 30 sec down, etc.” as the laps continued. The peloton did start reeling him back toward the end but he still had around 20 sec the last lap. With 3-4 laps to go Ralph Duckett and another rider broke hard to the outside on the 2 block staightaway and I started to follow them and decided “naw’ it’s too early and remained where I was behind Norm Kibble, Robert Tompkins, and our own Doug Perry. With about 1 lap to go the gap maxed out at about 80 ft and then the rest of us started picking up the pace and by the finish sprint it was 30-40 ft. Norm Kibble, surprisingly, broke late in the final lap and faded to the rear. Doug Perry, on the other hand, sprinted hard and nosed out Robert Tompkins at the line to be #4 across the line. I cruised in behind them to be #6 across the line.
From Doug: I went into the State Crit Championships today with two objectives — don’t get hurt and finish. Since I’d only done two crits in my life (both last year), I felt those objectives were all I could hope for. Things actually went really well and I ended up getting 2nd in my 60-64 group which had about ten in it. Reg Dowdall took off the front after the 2nd lap and we never saw him again … I think he won it by 20 seconds, or so. Second place came down to a sprint and I was able to pull around Norm Kibble and win the sprint at the end. Today was very satisfying.
