By Amanda Eaken -- Superweek - Alpine Valley Road Race (W2) -- 07/16/07
Third day of racing. First race in Wisconsin. First road race of the week. Thirty-five girls on the starting line. Weather called for rain and the overcast weather was a blessing. We were to race 5 laps of a 9.7 course with a couple of "power climbs". The first few laps were subdued, even slow, as various combinations of girls made various attempts at breaking up the field, usually on the climbs. Nothing was sticking though since everyone was relatively fresh and eager to chase.
On the fourth lap one well represented break looked dangerous. American Dairyland, Cheerwine, Xplane, Southbay wheelmen, among others were represented, leaving Metromint and Hub Racing (the aforementioned Giant Orange Amazon woman's team) to chase. Since Kelly Benjamin herself was in the move, I knew we needed to bring this one back. I went to the front and tried to round up a chase. One girl from TargetTraining was a great help, Hub Racing put in a few strong pulls, and one other local girl I didn't recognize did some good work. Jane and I worked well to pull it back since I would set the tempo up the climbs and she'd come around for the flat sections and give me a break from the wind. Needless to say, tensions were running a bit high since we had passed the one to go lapcard and were approaching another climb. We did finally catch the break much to our great satisfaction and immmediately started thinking about the finish - ate gels, drank water, tried to rest up.
The finish was bizarre since no one had gotten a chance to see it, we had heard it was a right turn off the road we had been racing on and that it was anywhere from 250 meters to 1000 meters from the turn to the finish line. Also, from our vantage, there was no clear way to tell exactly where the finish line was. Nice. Anyway, the typical jockeying for position occcured in the run up to the right turn to the finish line. Two girls kept sqeeezing me out of the wheel I wanted and I had to keep going up the right side and steeling the wheel back. I was VERY EXCITED when I saw Jane right next to me riding 5th wheel since this was excellent positioning for her to take into the final turn. When we finally made the right hand turn it was mayhem. Jane went wide, the Cheerwine lead out train went in the middle, I took an inside line and had to brake a little bit. I was trying to gauge where the hell the finish was and how long I wanted to sit on a wheel when I saw Kelly going up my left and then, Jane come FLYING past her!! Apparently sprints of unknown length with no end in sight favor Jane perfectly! She held Kelly off and ended up beating her by a couple bike lengths. I came 4th after being passed at the line by the Amazon from Hub racing. Needless to say we were ecstatic. Jane's first NRC win. Niiiiiice.