Races
Results and Reports

Race Report
By Jess Chin
Conference Champs Race Report
Day 1 - Conference Champs Road Race

Racers:
Faisal Karmali
Johan Bakken
Cliff Smoot
Peter Kuhn
Travis Snow
Sam Hertig
Weijie Zhang
Matt Brancheau
Fred Tan
Toby Weatherall
Jessica Chin
Katie Frato
Amber Leis
Katie Ross
Lora Bankova
Priscilla Pang

Because conferences were held in Maryland, hosted by American University, Hopkins and Maryland, we didn’t have to do any crazy overnight stays or crazy long drives. But, we met at 5:30am sharp at the Garland Parking Lot.

Roll out to the conference RR course in Pleasant Valley, MD an hour away. This is the same course as last year’s Conferences RR. Each loop is 12.7 miles long, rolling hills with a gravel part where a lot of crashes happened that day. We had a car full of Johan’s brothers who brought a cowbell to cheer us on and drives next to us when we’re racing so we’ll go faster.

The Men Cs and Women Bs Races were both 39 miles long. They rolled out at 8 and 8:02 respectively. It was foggy, wet and drizzling sporadically. But no worries! Faisal Karmali placed 17, Johan Bakken and Cliff Smoot coming close behind with 22nd and 24th place. Then the 4k riders we dragged out to race with us, many of them having never raced before, pulled in behind them. Travis Snow taking 34th place, Sam Hertig, 37th and Weijie Zhang close behind at 38th.

In the Women B race, Katie Frato took 4th place right behind an AU girl who upgraded to As the next day. Feeling strong, Katie tried to pull Jess up to the lead pack but Jess couldn’t make it and shouted at her to catch up to them. With hesitation, she did, because she didn’t want to drop her. (Did I mention that Katie’s awesome?). Amber Leis and Jess Chin took 10th and 12th place.

At 12:30, our Men A superstar, Toby Weatherall started his race, a whooping 78 miles to go. After a little less than half the race left, he pulled out of the race. At 12:40 the Men B and Women A race started, where Matt Brancheau, Fred Tan, Katie Ross, Priscilla Pang and Lora Bankova took off. Matt took off with the Men B pack, as always, having done extremely well in the last couple races. Unfortunately, Priscilla crashed 2 miles from the finish line and was rushed to the hospital. She came out with a broken collarbone, which seems to be healing well, already out of the sling (it’s only been 2 weeks!). Katie Ross took 8th place and Lora took 9th.

After the race, we rushed to the hospital to see how Priscilla was doing, but she got a ride home with another team. So we drove home.