The Fast and The Furious

by Jason Bentley

April 8, 2006 -- The Heights Crit was an event for the fast and furious! LOTS of very fast turns and windy straights made it extremely technical, and the talent in the P123 field (which only had a handful of 3's) made it very fast! I stupidly positioned myself near the back of the pack/paceline, which resulted in a huge accordion effect that snapped me off the back within 7 minutes. Shortly after I withdrew, Kirk skipped his pedal going around a corner which launched his rear wheel and upon landing rolled the tire bead off the rim. Of course, within 15 seconds or so it violently exploded taking him out of the race. (Actually, he did try to rejoin the race after getting a neutral wheel, but partially due to a stupid decision by an official of having him wait until the pack went by before rejoining, he couldn't get enough speed to pick it back up.) About 5 minutes after Kirk flatted, Tom also came out of the race with a flat tire. However, Greg and Jeremey hung in there and represented well with a 12th and 17th place, respectively.

Jeremey started off his exciting weekend by narrowly avoiding a crash on the last turn by jumping a curb into the grass, ducking a large tree branch that was about 5 feet off the ground, busting his lip on the top of his steerer tube, then jumping back onto the road to sprint for 17th! I've seen him do something similar before (Columbus crit last year), so I think he secretly wants to be a mountain biker.