Sonic Boom Race

The Sonic Boom team (http:/sonicboomracing.com/) brought bike racing back to downtown Louisville this past weekend and we had a total blast.  It was a well run event, especially for a first year event, and we just loved the course.  Hopefully it is back in 2012 and if we are really lucky maybe the city would repave Front Street (a few laps there the train tacks next to Front Street looked like a smoother option).  This was an old school crit that we have less of these days, so it made it that much better.  The course is a classic figure 8 course, with 8 turns, it was pretty narrow, and the course went up for half and then back down for half.  Due to the nature of the course we knew it would be single file most of the time, so riding at the front was important.  Our 35 plus guys had 9 riders on the line, with a good mix of riders from sprinters, to worker, to some all around guys.

As soon as the gun went off the guys hit the front early, attacking to see if they could sneak into an early split.  CJ was up the road on lap two, and soon after the Matt's both had a go, along with Principal Barnett, then Pete Lucke fresh from the 45 plus race.  The pace never slowed much and the guys covered all the moves.  A group of 5 got away with CJ and Matt Gates, Byron from Rio, and Paul Espoiti from Map My Ride, but that group split and Jeff Hartman from Westside went up the rode solo.  Jeff is clearly one of the strongest guys in the field and he rode his lead out to close to 30 seconds, solo.  It was an impressive effort.

Luckily the mix1 guys did not panic and once the lead got to 30 seconds it stopped going up.   There was a lot of attacking going on in the field, but nothing was going anywhere.  With about 10 to go team sprinter Dan Schmatz got the guys organized and we put 4 riders on the front who staid there to the bitter end.  It was a sight to see with Matt Gates, LT, and Marc just rolling at the front and slowly bringing back the break.  We did not get much help from the field, as they were more interested in attacking, but with some help from Grant on Vic's, we caught the solo break on the last lap.  Things got a little dicey on that lap, but Dan and Josh held position, Dan had a strong move into the last corner and took the win, Josh came in right behind in 4th, and CJ just missed the money in 11th.  All in all it was a complete team effort and after a lot of close calls all the guys were excited to race like team, take change of the race and deliver the win. 

 Dan with his oldest son right after the race.  This photo sums up our team, as we have lots of families, and lots of kids.  Racing is fun, winning is great, but doing it with the family is even better.

 Clearly Dan did not go hard enough as he needed some extra work after the event.

Paul Espoiti from Map My Ride, Dan, and Lance from Groove Subaru on the podium.  Lance deserves the bike handling award on the last lap as another rider cut him off with 3 corners to go and he made a great save to keep it up right, get around said rider, and make the podium.  Nice work Lance.