The LITESPEED-BMW team had been looking forward to their “home” criterium race for some time as lots of friends and family and several team sponsors would be at the event (thank you to Wayne Schulte with BMW and Aimee Henderson with Georgia Natural Gas for coming out and watching us race, we hope you enjoyed the action). So the day was finally here to race the Grant Park Criterium in Atlant
a, the team was ready!
First up, the Masters criterium featuring LITESPEED-BMW riders Benjy Coil, Clay Parks and Chris Brown. The plan was to have Benjy and Clay go with early moves with Chris coming across or attacking if nothing works in the first fifteen minutes or so and then have two in the move. Benjy and Clay a great job manning the front and going with early moves. After about 15 minutes Chris saw an opportunity to attack and went for it, only problem was two Peachtree Bicycles riders got with him and this was not a good situation for Chris especially considering he wanted to save some energy for the Pro/1/2 race later that evening.. So backing it down a bit Chris regrouped with about seven other riders including riders from Tria and Irondata. Chris was heavily marked by others and eventually Brendan Sullivan from Iron Data attacked and no other teams wanted to chase. Chris waited and waited finally having to attack solo to try to catch Brendan with six laps left in the race. Chris chased hard and was able to get back 22 seconds of Brendan’s 30 second gap by the finish. Chris finished second overall, but won his age group (so much for saving energy as Chris had not wanted to be solo for over five laps of the race. Oh well, that is racing).
Next up the Pro/1/2 race featuring a full squad of Litespeed-BMW riders…