Motor City Tri, Lumberjack 100 & Allen Park Crit

It seems that Team Active Racing was able to cover both ends of Michigan's lower peninsula this weekend, with racers at the Motor City Triathlon on Belle Isle and the Lumberjack 100 in Manistee at the "Big M" ski area.

Motor City Triathlon
The Team's "big boy" Jonah Curtis continued his dominance of the "Clydesdale" category and placed 2nd in the Sprint division. Matt Wright competed in the Olympic distance event and placed 5th in his age group (35-39). The day turned out to be a beautiful one to spend racing and the 10 mph wind gave both racers a nice "push" on the way home for the bike route on the back side of the Island. Great job guys!

Lumberjack 100
While race day provided some great weather for racing, the 10+ inches of rain that fell on Northern Michigan made for some interesting sections for this year's LJ100. While the sandy soil of the course soaked up most of the rain, there was about 100-200 yards of calf-deep "swamp water" that racers got to trudge through on each of the four 25-mile laps.

Racers Joe Kucharski (single speed), Jim Gallagher, Dan Frayer, Charlie Swett and your's truly (Eric Cook) all lined up for the start at 7 am and were off. Charlie, in his first appearance at the LJ (and one of the youngest registered riders) completed 25 miles and Dan (coming off a rather "abusive" Mohican 100) put in 50. Joe ended up placing top 10 in the singlespeed group, which was a great showing for his first LJ. Jim, who has raced the "cross country" event at the Big M before, toughed it out and also completed 100 miles in about 10 hours. Finally, I was able to push through some of the most painful cramps and completed my third LJ. The running joke after finishing was that "I got my money's worth" since it took me the full 12 hours to complete the event.

A special thanks to teammates Jack Miner and Mark Sherman as well as Charlie's little brother and father for coming up and helping at the pit and keeping us fueled. We also had a coupe of guest pit members (Dan's buddy Brain and Joe's buddy Mike) and we all got to bunk out at "Chez Miner" Friday night and Jim, and I remained for Saturday night to enjoy some of the local entertainment - nothing like a cold beer in a snowmobile bar with the locals bellowing on the Kereoke machine!

Allen Park Criterium
Great update from Devin on his crit from this weekend. Enjoy...

Greetings race fans - what a beautiful day for racing at the Allen
Park Oakbrook Industrial complex.

The CAT 5 race started swift and sure and 8 minutes into the race,
we began to lap the field. An attack from the right side (to the
outside of the lapped rider) resulted in a terrible crash that sent
one rider to the hospital in an ambulance. The field was, for all
intents and purposes, neutralized for several laps as the carnage
was cleared from the race course.

When racing resumed, the sun was shining and the racing was heating
up with numerous attacks off the front that were quickly covered.
With the final lap to go, I positioned myself to give a good leadout
to the one who had been pulling most of the race. (One of those
deals you work out during the course of the race.)

Rounding the final corner, I wound it up to about 30 mph, and in the
last 50 meters saw 4 additional racers (apart from the guy I was
leading out) pass. I wound up 6th, but happy with the result and
glad to be upright.

I now look forward to the June 28th Rockford Criterium, where I hope
to keep it upright and NOT repeat last year's crash.

Devin

Great job to all the racers this past weekend, and to all of the Team members for being there to help train, support and encouragement leading up to the "big events". Now, we all need to focus our positive energy on our Primal Quest Eco Challenge team. Go Kathy, Melissa, Eric and Scott... Rock Montana and do us all proud! Be sure to check out the Tracking option once the race starts and keep an eye on Team #28.

Cap'n Cook