The first race of the Georgia Cycling Gran Prix took place at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA. Its a rolling 2.5 mile loop that is recognized as one of the world’s best road courses. This year the organiser decided to race the course counter-clockwise as well as combine the P/1/2 field with the category 3 field, so we had about 50 riders at the start for this 50 mile race. LITESPEED/BMW had Colby Millen, Chris Chotas, Hank Beaver, Wes Parrish, and Oneil Samuels on the line and ready to rock. The Team Type 1 Devo team also had about 8 riders there, so we knew they were the team to watch. Nothing would get away without one (or more) of their riders being present.
As usual, the racing was aggressive from the gun. It was obvious Team Type 1 wasn’t going to let anything get away without either local stud Joey Rosskopf or Florida legend Dan Holt present. All of the LITESPEED/BMW riders took turns getting into every break that tried to get away. We won’t bore you with the blow-by-blow, but this went on for a good 20 miles. Finally, Oneil was able to get into a solid break of 8 riders. The break included Oneil, the evergreen Brian Toone of Alabama’s Tria Market team, and a trio of Team Type 1 riders Joey, Dan, and Alexei Schmidt (of their Pro team). This was the move. As they began to pull away, the rest of us stayed at the front of the field to make sure no other teams could chase them down or try to get anybody across the gap and into the move. Oneil held his own in the break and went pull-for-pull with the trio from TT1.
As the laps counted down, the racing up front heated up. Riders in the break took turns attacking each other on the short, steep hill at the beginning of every lap. Oneil was feeling good and was confident he could take this group in the sprint if it came down to one. Finally on the last lap TT1 began their leadout for Alexei who is a former Russian national champion on the track. As they came around the last turn Oneil was sitting in the catbird’s seat ready to pounce. At 300 meters, Oneil unleashed his sprint that has won him multiple Jamaican national titles and came around Alexei and Joey to WIN by 2 bike lengths!!! It was a great win by Oneil over some very quality riders and a great way to start the week of racing! 