Saturday evening the team headed East on I-20 for the 5th race of the series, a criterium in downtown Covington, GA. The race would be 90 minutes on a new course that none of us had raced before. About 50 riders were on the start line including 6 from LITESPEED/BMW – Oneil Samuels, Benjy Coil, Wes Parrish, Hank Beaver, Chris “KOM” Chotas, and Quenton “Colby” Millen. The rest of the field was made up of most of the same we’d raced against for the previous races in the series plus a few new faces.
Another fast start saw constant attacks throughout the 6-turn course. Benjy, who’d be mistaken for Don Draper if you didn’t know better, took charge from the start and was present in every move for the first 15 minutes of the race. Just as we were wondering if the rest of us would get a chance to help out, Oneil managed to slip into a break including Joey Rosskopf and Alexey Schmidt (both Team Type 1), Thomas Brown (Team Mountain Khaki’s), and Serghei Tvetcov (Aerocat). This move had some serious horsepower. Since the two largest teams in the race, LITESPEED/BMW and TT1, each had riders in the break, chances were slim that this one would come back. For the next hour, Wes, Hank, and Colby took turns patrolling the front of the field marking any rider that would try to get away from the group.
Oneil rockin' the aviators
With about 20 minutes left in the race, the break up front had split into two groups. The first 3 riders caught the field with 6 laps to go while Oneil and his companion caught on with 4 to go. Benjy and Wes helped get Oneil up through the field and up to Hank up front. Hank positioned Oneil as best he could for the sprint amongst all the chaos of the last 2 laps. When a break laps the field and you have them sprinting for the win while in the main group of riders, things can get pretty hairy! Oneil was near the front of the field crossing the finish line, but wasn’t sure how he’d placed amongst the leaders. When the dust settled and the officials posted the results, Oneil came home with a fine 5th place finish on the evening after spending nearly an hour off the front of the race and lapping the field! Benjy led the rest of the team home in 14th place. Another fun night of racing for the team with Oneil again flying the colors of LITESPEED/BMW off the front of the race!