Disappointment in the Road Champs....

So after the dust was settled we walked away empty-handed in yesterday's National Road Championship Road Race after 120 miles of tough racing. Santino's ended up dominating the race placing 4 guys in the top 5 and walking away with the elite, U-23 and Master titles.

As expected, the race stayed virtually together for the 1st quarter until they met the rolling hilly sections. At the "Gap" (the race's toughest climb), Marlon (Santino's) launched a hard attack. He was quickly followed by Giov (Starz) who'd been out in the 1st small break of the day, Roger (Zamir), Greg (Santino's & defending Champ) and Nissan Arana (Typhoon). This group would eventually start building a lead that would prove to be the race's defining break. At this point...and coming out of the hilly section we were feeling good as we had our two best guys in the main break, with the two favored Santino guys and not enough fire power left in the bunch from other teams after clearing the hills.


With maybe 50 miles or so to go, we started playing our cards. Hernan, Jose, and Pete (all Zamir) along with Mateo (Starz) and two Santino riders made a bid to get over to the five leaders. We sent word to Roge and Giov in the break to shut it down a bit in order to give the chasers a chance to catch up. The thinking there was that if they did get across, the Zamir/Starz alliance would be well placed having 6 total riders in a break that would have been 11 strong if the chasers got there.

For whatever reason Giov continued pressing the pace in the break, and then in the back with the chasers, one of the Santino's riders dropped off the pace and Jose slowed down and stayed with him, as well as Pete. This grave error costed us a shot at the race, as Mat and Hernan were unable to close the gap to the leaders by themselves (both having labored in the early part of the race). Two Santino's riders saw them crack and attacked them and bridged across after a massive effort. This put the advantage squarely in the Santino's team hands....seven man break of which they had four of their best, two solid pacers and their two best sprinters.

After that Santino's used their numbers and threw down the attacks one behind the other. Giov was a monster and tracked every attack down in the last 15 miles of the race. Roge sat on with the hope that he would have been able to conserve enough to counter one of the Santino attacks in the last mile or two, maybe catch their sprinters off guard. With less than a mile to go and well within the last 500 meters, Marlon launched a killer attack and came flying round the final roundabout with a gap on the lead group which he would hold on to the end, just barely beating out teammate and last year's champion Gerg Lovell.

Third position went to a brave and well-deserving Nissan Arana (2007 Elite Champion) considering the work he did tracking back attacks with Giov in the last 15 miles. Santino's managed 4th - Darnel Barrow and 5th - Bertram Brown (former Starz ruder), with 6th going to Roge and 7th to Giov. 8th went to Santino's Leroy Casasola (also giving them the Masters title) and Jose (Zamir) managed to get 9th.

Clean sweep for Santino's.....

The season should now really slow down as no other major races remain on the calendar. We will instead be looking to do some races over in Mexico in the coming weeks, perhaps the Vuelta de Merida and the Clasica de Cuidad del Carmen around end July and early August.