03/16/2020
Thanks to Chain Buster Racing for a great race! Proud of our parents, coaches and volunteers that helped make it a success!
And that's a wrap!
A temperate and partly sunny day greeted racers for race #2 of the Terrapin Beer Co.Southeastern Gravel Series at the Mt. Airy City Hall for packet pickup where amazing volunteers from the Habersham Raiders NICA team guided them through the registration process. For 2020, a reschedule forced a venue change and an all new course. The town of Mt. Airy was amazingly accommodating, and the new course was described as "killer" by Masters racer Chris Lessing. We'll assume he meant it in a good way!
At 10:00, our short course participants rolled off the start where a course of 19.3 miles and over 2100 elevation awaited. The course was fast and flowy with a few punchy climbs sprinkled along the route before the brutal exit climb up Lake Lake Russell Road. Overall winner and local junior racer and Habersham Raider member Jack Horton blistered the short course with a finish time of 1:31:36 followed closely by Ultra Masters (60+) racer Robert Rivers with a time of 1:32:01. Overall female racer Kristi Harding led a talented field of racers with an amazing finish time of 1:55:20 followed by Masters racer Susan Nichols with finish time of 2:00:51.
At 10:15, our long course racers rolled to the start line where a course of 35 miles and over 4000 feet of elevation awaited. Overall winner, course designer, and Grand Masters (50-59) racer Jame Carney destroyed the course with a finish time of 2:10:40 and was followed closely by Open category winner Jaden Grimes with a finish time of 2:10:56. The Open category saw a Piedmont College Cycling team podium sweep with Jaden Grimes, Sammy Rideout, and Conley Wilhelm taking all the steps. The most exciting finish came in our Masters division where Trae Grimes (2:15:28.87) edged out Pete Edmondson (2:15:28.94). Erica Carney led our super talented female racers with an overall victory and finish time of 2:36:43 followed by Masters division winner Laina Palmeri with a finish time of 2:53:43.
After our awards celebration, Trae Grimes continued his winning streak by taking home the amazing Roval Control gravel wheelset by Specialized Bicycles!
It truly was an amazing day of racing.
Final thoughts.
Yesterday, we had an serious incident on course that required medical evacuation and advanced first responder care. We visited the racer in the hospital this morning. He will make a full recovery. We have never viewed our racers as "customers" or "clients" but rather as family. We could not be happier that you view each other the same way. We would like to thank Rick Masters, James Himstedt, Derek Boyd, and Laura Sartain for their superior care for the downed rider. Also, a rider who did not give his name but gladly gave his jacket as hypothermia and shock were becoming a very real concern. Derek Boyd heads up our medical response team for the endurance series, but he raced the short course yesterday. He had literally just finished his race when we received word about the incident and he immediately left to go head the emergency extraction efforts and transport rider from a remote location to an awaiting ambulance. The rider was amazed by the care he received from all of you.
On that note, I need to offer a gentle reminder to all racers of all events (ours and any others) to be sure and accurately fill out the emergency contact portion of your waiver. It is absolutely critical to providing incident care.
Lastly...this is the portion of our after-event post where we typically hype our next event. For us, the next event on the calendar is Scratch Ankle Gravel in Milton, FL on March 28. However, we will be evaluating in the next few days with our local partners as well as local and state government officials to decide what best course of action to take. These are difficult times to be an event promoter because there is literally no consensus on what should happen. We had medical professionals (medical doctors, nurse practitioners, ER nurses, and EMTs) racing in our event this weekend who obviously felt it was perfectly safe to do so. We also had medical professionals and many others who asked to be transferred to other events because of understandable concern. Thank you for your patience as we figure it out, and thank you for being an amazing family of riders!
-Jason
