1st Race of the Season a hit

By Darin Boyd

The Rocky Mt. Raceway series got underway Saturday with no surprises in the "A" pack but a big one in the "B's" as "yours truly" came away with the big win! The weather was just about as good as could be expected for the first race of the year resulting in a big turnout. Dirk Cowley reported that 94 riders showed up making for the best turnout for the opener since he has been involved with the race.

The racing was fast and furious and in typical fashion Ryan Littlefield along with a couple others including Travis Tenney, Ward Haily, and Rodney Mena got away and held a small gap over the hard chasing field. Defending series champion for several years, Littlefield took the sprint followed in by Mena, Tenney, and Haily respectively

In the "B's" there were a number of futile attacks that, as seems to be the norm, were quickly reeled in, setting up the trademark field sprint finish. I was in pretty good position heading out of the last turn and with about 300 meters one of the Rhodes boys took a flyer down the right side. Before the race I had picked out a mark on the pavement that I felt I could go from, so as I crossed it I jumped. He had a pretty good gap, but I came around him with about 100 meters to go and just hoped I had enough to hold on. I checked my side view as best as I could and as I had suspected, saw the front Spinergy of Jim Morgan creeping up on my left. This left a drag race of about 50 meters for the line and I nipped him by about half a wheel.

Full results can be found by linking the Utah Cycling Associations site from our home page.

Hopefully our good weather luck will hold out and we can have good turnouts and fun racing for the rest of our early season. Racing is back Saturday the 11th and we hope to see you out there. A season plate is $35.00 which includes your first race and subsequent races are just $6.00.