Carefast | Storck Race Results From Utah Feb. 20

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Desert Crit Series – St. George – Ft. Pierce

Zac1stftpierce

Cat 3/4

Race Report by Zac Harpin

Andy, Sergei, Tyler, Jeff, Danny and myself lined up with a pretty simple plan… no breaks on this particular day, just keep it to a sprint finish for me to take a stab at. Surprisingly other teams seemed pretty anxious to initiate attacks and get off the front, which caught us by surprise a bit. It’s a course where a break can go pretty easily, I think we just thought others might be looking to us to initiate it with our larger numbers.

Anyhow, Andy and Tyler do a great job of managing the attacks that do go; they’re always in them but doing little if any work to discourage them. Fast forward to 3 to go and a Cicada & independent rider launch. Nobody panics but they are motivated and nobody in the field is too motivated to bring them back. Jeff & Danny take the lead and being them back within lap or so. The independent rider re-attacks messing up our lead out plan; Danny makes the perfect call and decides to stay on the front for another lap and bring him back. Danny’s smoked at this point and Jeff is on my wheel in a sweeper role as he’s put in a lot of work, fresh off food poisoning too. This is where the fun begins, although I know Jeff would disagree. ; )

1 to go and I’m second wheel; I know I’m about to lead out the field or get swarmed if we don’t figure out something fast. I tell Jeff he has to come around and give me a big effort. He’s smoked but he’s the man for the job. Jeff comes around and does what he does best… drills it. He in the saddle, out of the saddle, in again, out again… He’s torched but not giving up. My motivational speaking is at an all time high; I’m just hoping he can get me to the second to last corner and I’ll jump from there. Long, but doable. Jeff dumps me into that corner just as I had hoped for, I jump and put in a good one and we get the win.

Can’t say enough about the work that Tyler and Andy put in early and the work that Danny and Jeff put in late to get us in a position to win. Flawless decision making too on their part. My job was easy because of all the work they did. Great work fellas, on to the next one.

Pro 123

Grill2ndFtPierce
Race Report by Nathan Grill

It was Zac, Danny, Jeff, Andy, Tyler, and myself. Everyone else had finished the 3/4 race an hour prior and they all said the felt pretty cooked. Started off pretty mellow and then came the attacks. A few small breaks got off the front and I commanded the guys to get to the front and slowly bring them back. Great job to Danny, Andy, Zac, and Tyler for stepping up without question. I went at about 28 minutes in with Tate and we were joined about a lap later by 6 guys. We went around for a bit and the announcer called a prime for series points. I sat back and let others battle it out. There was a little gap with me, Tate, 2 SBR guys including and a rider from Cicada, so we took advantage of it. Fast forward and we’re all taking pulls, but some aren’t pushing as hard as others. At 7 laps to go, I decide I’m going to start skipping rotations. SBR has 2 guys and it’s their race to lose. I pull through every few rotations and at 4 laps to go were going easy. SBR gets to the front and starts to pick up pace. 2 to go and I’m 3rd wheel behind Tate, going along the back straight, against the cones and he clips the cone and then I run it over with my rear wheel and nose wheelie for a few feet.

Thankfully I recover. Coming into the last lap, there’s a small gap of about 15-20 meters to one of the SBR guys and the pace really picks up. Then we lapped the field. I really, really didn’t want to lap the field, especially in lap cards and especially on the last lap. This was right before turn 3. Come out of the turn and I’m leading, Allegiant jumps out of the field and a Tate takes his wheel, with the Cicada kid is in tow. They go wide and the Cicada kid missed the jump. He goes and I have to make up room and then sprinted around him. Was a close finish and ran out of road to close it — Tate takes the win by a wheel and I roll in for 2nd.

All in all, I’m super proud of how everyone rode, especially considering they all had a race in their legs already. You’re all riding fantastic and is great to see you all in form! Lets keep crushing it!

Carefast | Storck Race Results from AZ and So Cal. Feb. 12-14

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voscat2x

Race Report by Terry Steeves

Team Carefast | Storck spent the weekend mixing it up in early season racing action between SoCal and the UCLA Road Race and in Arizona at the Valley of Sun Stage Race.

The team had some great success this weekend on all fronts across multiple categories. When the dust settled, here’s where we stood.

Valley of the Sun Stage Race

A big thanks to all the volunteers WMRC pulls together for this event, and Landis Cyclery for all they do to support such a great event.

Cat 2

Kevin Turchin and Nathan Grill took on the Cat 2 field and came away with solid performances overall. Kevin was a little disappointed in his Stage 1 TT, but a solid road race performance in Stage 2 moved him up in the GC. Nathan managed his RR effort to maximize his crit performance in Stage 3. He spent much of his time near the front of the crit race and both guys would finish in the lead group with the same time.

Masters 45+

Mike Allec, Terry Steeves, and Tony Rago raced in the M45 category. After the Stage 1 TT all guys were comfortably inside the top 20. The Stage 2 Road Race ended in an uphill sprint to the line with the reduced field down to about 28 riders in the lead group. All three of the Carefast/Storck boys made the final selection and earned the same time as the winners. The Stage 3 crit was a short race where we needed to do all we could to move everyone up in the GC. A last lap boggle with an inattentive spectator on course caused havoc and evasive maneuvers in the field causing an ‘every man for himself’ scenario, and we held our own. At the end of the day we had all 3 riders in the top 15 GC with Terry 9th, Mike 12th, and Tony 13th.

Masters 35+

Elliot Grothe raced the M35 category and started off Stage 1 with a solid TT performance putting him just outside the top 10. A good showing in the road race moved Elliot up to a top 10 overall. Elliot put himself on the podium in the stage 3 crit to move up two more spots in the overall to 8th in GC.

Cat 3

Andy Erickson took on the Cat 3 field by himself and was largely focused on using this as an early season training block. Andy bettered his 2015 TT time at this event in Stage 1, put himself in a solid break move in the Stage 2 Road Race before it was eventually brought back and positioned himself well the Stage 3 crit, responding to few breakaway efforts before finishing in the lead group.

Cat 4

Sergei Vasilyev raced the Cat 4 field alone and took advantage of the race environment to build on some early season training. Using his road bike in the Stage1 TT would put him out of contention but Sergei was focused on the Stage 2 Road Race and Stage 3 crit. Sergei comes away with a good training block in a great race environment.

UCLA Road Race

Shannon Larsen and Yash Gokul made the trip to SoCal for the UCLA Road Race.

Shannon raced the 35+4/5 race and having just recovered from the flu his expectation was simply to use this as a training effort.

Yash Gokul hit the Cat 3 race with a view to take on some of the areas best Cat 3 climbers. First lap went good… everyone hit it pretty hard but on the first lap most everyone was fresh enough to stay on. The 2nd lap is when most of the damage happened. Yash missed move that took a front group containing about 10 riders up the road. Yash kept it going for a possible top 20.

Carefast | Storck Race Results from Utah Feb. 6th

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Desert Crit Series – St. George Airport Course (Modified)

DC_FEB634

Cat 3/4

Race report by Tony Rago

Desert Crit Series Airport – Cat 3/4

Danny, Shannon, Yash, Zac and I lined up for this one with a field of 25. Cicada, Rapid City, Canyon and Mandalay were all there.

This was the airport course and it was modified with a chicane after the first corner and then a hairpin right before the final corner into a short sprint.

There were plenty of attacks but due to the longer course and a little headwind on the backside, nothing was really sticking. Yash was up front and covering any and all attempts like a champ!

With about 20mins to go a Cicada rider went for a prime and I covered him which created a decent gap. I told him to go, we had a gap so let’s build on it. He said he was gassed and needed to recover. I told him to take my wheel. When he said he was good, he did a small pull and then he was gone. I now had enough a gap to build on and although it was early I committed. I believe this was with 8 to go – lap cards were not out yet.

I was getting time splits from Will at Rapid City and at the peak I had 27 secs on the field. When I looked back I could see the boys covering anything that made an attempt to come after me.

Last lap I had a 19 sec gap and I held on to finish 1st followed by Zac in 2nd and Danny in 3rd. A Carefast Podium Sweep!

Thanks to Danny, Shannon, Yash and Zac for executing a perfect race and big thanks to coach Elliot for putting me through the paces!

Looking forward to the next one boys!

Pro123

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Race Report by Danny Pearce

Desert Crit Series – St George Airport Course

Pro 123

Zac, Terry, Tony, Kevin, and I lined up with about 25 others. The familiar faces of the Allegiant, Cicada, and Canyon Cycles showed.

Rapid City changed up the usual oval course. They added a double chicane on the back side of the course, coming into the finish line. It made a rounded “M”, with a 8-10 second sprint coming out of the last turn. We knew that we wanted to be first entering the last chicane as there wasn’t much opportunity move through it.

As expected, the other teams were motivated to get in a break. They each took turns trying, but all of us were on break duty today and reeled them back one after another. We rode smart, letting 1 rider go, but following the bridge attempts.

A couple times we found ourselves in breaks, with 20 second gaps as we followed wheels. The break I was in became discouraged when I wouldn’t put my nose in the wind. Mission accomplished. Zac got into promising break of 6. It had all the teams represented. Allegiant didn’t like the make-up of it and brought it back. Tony threw out a solid counter punch with 3 to go, making the other teams react. The attempts continued till the last lap. Starting up the back stretch a rider tried to go on a flier, but Tyrel and I followed. About half way up the long backstretch, he realized he didn’t have it when he looked to his right and there was a surging Carefast train lead out by Zac, with Terry on his wheel. It was a glorious sight.

Tyrel jumped on Terry’s wheel and I followed. Terry jumped before the chicane, making Tyrel put in a big dig to make up ground. Coming out of the last turn it was a drag race.

Carefast 1 & 2! Terry edged out Tyrel by a thousandth of a second. Solid effort from everyone in Plaid. Smart riding and great times.

Another solid weekend in the books for The Plaid Army!

See you in AZ for the Valley of the Sun Stage Race.