Way Up in Tupelo

Sunday's Renasant Criterium masters

It's a long way to Tupelo from New Orleans, but it promised two days of criteriums, one of which was the LAMBRA Criterium Championship, and besides, I had most of the LAMBRA equipment that would be needed. So early Saturday morning I loaded up the Volvo, clamped the bike to the roof, picked up coffee and Starbucks, and headed northeast to the far, far corner of Mississippi. I knew that the travel issue would limit the number of LAMBRA riders willing to make the trip, but on the other hand, I expected the race to draw riders from nearby cities in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. That would at least make for an interesting mix. This was the race's second year, so I knew the race director would have all of the basics under control, and since the weather was looking to be dry all weekend I figured I'd easily be able to jump into at least one of the races. We had two officials lined up for the weekend, so I was basically just backup and someone to handle the finish line camera.

After an uneventful 5+ hour drive I arrived at the course nice and early since the first race wasn't scheduled to start until 2 pm. By the time we had things all set up at the finish line I was already hot and tired, so I decided I'd focus on officiating on Saturday and save the racing for Sunday. The last race of the day was the Cat. 1/2/3 race and since it was starting at 7:30 pm I knew it would be ending in the dark, which would complicate judging tremendously. The night before I had gone over to Lowe's and picked up a set of LED work lights that I planned to put right on the finish line. I knew that they would probably be just barely adequate, or inadequate, since the finish was pretty wide and even at 9,000 lumens the finish camera was going to be seriously challenged.

Getting the finish set up on Saturday

So as we're preparing for the start of the first race and riders are still doing warm-up laps, we get word that someone has crashed on turn #3 (the course on Saturday was a particularly short rectangle). That crash resulted in a broken collarbone and concussion, I think, so everything was delayed about ten minutes until the ambulance cleared the course. Later, there would be another crash, this time involving the Race Director himself. With the finish line pretty close to the first turn, it had been decided to tell the riders to go straight after the finish rather than taking turn #1. Unfortunately, in one of the races there was a rider who came across the finish line with one to go just a few seconds before the lead pack sprinted. When that rider got to the corner the leaders had caught up to him. They were going straight. He was turning left. I think that one resulted in another broken collarbone.

Anyway, over the course of the afternoon we got things back on track time-wise and started the rather large and very aggressive Cat. 1/2/3 race more or less on time. As the hour-long race progressed I watched the camera images get darker and darker, despite my adjustments to the capture rate. A few laps before the finish the camera's automatic motion detection stopped working which told me that it had gotten too dark, even with the lights, to expect much. Unfortunately it was also dark enough that it was hard to read the rider numbers by eye until they passed in front of the lights. Anyway, the camera has a "force" option for such situations and I recorded the finish. The other judges had only partial results since there was a pack sprint. After much squinting and a little detective work we pieced together the finish order fairly well, I think. Riders who had come across the line closer to the camera had readable numbers. Those that came across farther away didn't. Still, we were quite confident about the top 6 or so, which allowed for awards and podium photos. By the time we picked up, packed up, and checked into the hotel it was almost 10 pm. Robert and I walked over to the restaurant next to the hotel to find that they stopped serving dinner at 10 pm. It was about 10:05 when we arrived. Luckily, we spotted Adam Morris at a table with a bunch of other riders and friends and since Adam apparently knows everyone in Tupelo, including the server, they added our order to their table and we got something to eat, plus some bonus entertainment from both the server and the big table next to us where someone was having a birthday party involving lots of adult beverages.

GW and me finishing out the remaining laps

So on Sunday I went out to the course really early to set up the big USAC banners and finish line area. We had decided to move the finish upstream a bit for Sunday to avoid complications with turn #1 like we'd had on Saturday. I went over and registered for the Masters race, mainly just to get some riding in. Trying to help with officiating and setup and then jumping into a race never works for me, so the only question was whether I'd be dropped from the start or dropped halfway through (turned out to be the latter). At the start we had only six riders, which was pretty disappointing. However among those six were a number of riders I knew, including Hunter East, a Cat. 1 from Little Rock, who was the current Arkansas state champion and current national 55-59 Road and Criterium champion, and Emile Abraham, a 45 year old Cat. 1 from Atlanta who was 2nd at last year's masters nationals and winner of his masters race at Sunny King. We also had GW Wenzel, a 62 year old Cat. 1 from Auburn who's been racing since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, like me. Todd Hollingsworth from Alabama and Jeff Buse from the Tupelo area (also serving as stand-in race director after Matt's crash). Surprisingly the race started off smoothly, and for quite a few laps the whole little group just rode paceline. Then they announced a Prime and I knew my time was about over. Sure enough, the surge for the Prime opened gaps and the race was on at the front. That left GW and me together with Jeff dangling about twenty seconds up the road, and the rest way up ahead. This wasn't unexpected, of course, so GW and I quickly settled into a nice pace trading turns at the front and ultimately succeeding in not being lapped by the leaders (barely). I enjoyed the course which included a few more blocks and turns than the short Saturday course. The Cat. 1/2/3 race a little later was very fast and animated although marred by a crash at one point. With everything ending in the early afternoon I was all packed up and back on the road by 4 pm or so. The drive back was remarkably smooth with surprisingly little traffic. On the satellite radio I had temporary access to the Beatles Channel where they were playing every song the Beatles ever produced, in chronological order, with interesting stories about most of them. I guess I got to the late 60s by the time I got home.

Ready to ride at Stoney Point

The next morning, Memorial Day, I was up early again to drive across the lake to do a group reconnaissance ride on the Tour de La road course. We had maybe 12 or 15 riders and had a really nice ride. The first lap was fairly easy as I stopped before each intersection to freshen up some of the road markings. There were a lot of bad sections of road on the back side of the course - a couple of those smaller roads have been deteriorating for years. Most of it shouldn't be bad enough to cause a crash, although there are definitely a few spots that could result in a pinch flat for riders running lower tire pressures. Otherwise, though, the course looked fine and after we finished the first lap we stopped to regroup and so that I could get rid of the empty paint can and replace it with a full water bottle.

The bar at the Southern Hotel in Covington

The second and third laps were mostly at a pretty fast pace. On the second lap we ended up with Mike Lew and Brandon (?) off the front, chased by Steve Johnson and me. It was a good little workout. The second lap was just slightly slower but still fast enough to do some damage. By the time I got home I was good and exhausted. Then on Tuesday I left work early to drive across the lake again, this time with Mignon, to meet with Fred and the Covington police, fire, and mayor's office folks so we could finalize details for the Tour de Louisiane criterium June 9. Since we've done the criterium there for so many years, and since everything would be the same this year, that went smoothly. We stopped at the nearby Southern Hotel afterward to pick up a gift certificate they were donating as a Prime. As we were walking out I spotted this older gentleman sitting at the bar and had to stop and take a rather iconic candid photo. 

Next weekend will be two days over in Hammond for a road race and two criteriums. Then the following weekend will be the Tour de La. After that I think I'll be more than ready for a little break with just the Pontchartrain weekday series between then and the road championships at the beginning of August.