Well, well, where to start? Its 7:30 Monday morning and I find myself already on a flight back home to Phoenix after this past weekend’s Downers Grove National Criterium Championships. First of, as I sit on this flight, I find myself wondering who in the world ever buys anything from the airlines Sky Mall magazine? Its 195 pages filled with pure crap. Example: A solar powered self cooling baseball cap. Who needs one of those anyways? Alright, back to the issue at hand.
I have been asked by Curtis to write a little diddy about last night’s race in Downers Grove. Since I haven’t really raced much in the States, this was my first go around at this particular race. It really wasn’t as mind numbing as I had suspected a 100 kilometers of riding lap after lap of a figure eight would be. Not nearly as boring as some of the SuperWeek stages I did back in the late 1900’s and again in 2002. Contrary to first glance, the Downer’s Grove course is actually a fairly challenging loop. While there is no tough climb or super tight corners, the entire course is up and down and includes 8 corners per lap that all add up to make a fairly difficult race. Factor in the long 100K distance and it makes for a tough day at the old criterium office.

Historically, a break never really materializes and the race ends in a bunch kick. This year would be no different. Basically, an attack of riders would go, gain a few hundred meter advantage and then be brought back a handful of corners later. Then some guy in blue would counter attack, a green guy would go with him, so would a red guy and they’d be brought back a few corners later only to be counter attacked by an orange guy, a red, white and blue guy and another green guy. With most of the strength in the bunch uninterested in riding in a breakaway, it would come down to a sprint and make for a rather uneventful race.

In fact, I can’t really think of a super exciting part of the race except for when Mike Creed touched my butt and the other time when I saw 2 Rite Aid riders crash together in the same corner. There was one point in the race when a dangerous break did materialize and Jittery Joe’s missed out on it so Trent Wilson, Neil Shirley and I hit the front, swapped off at a good clip and brought it back. I, in the process, nearly went blind from the effort. It took a few laps to get over that one….. So, to make a long story short, Hilton Clarke took out another Illinois criterium win and Brad Huff ran second claiming the US National Champ jersey. As for Jittery Joe’s, Jeff Hopkins was running 4th going into the last corner only to get t-boned by another rider in the typical brothel of a finish that Downers in known for. Hoppy got back on top of his gear and still ran 6th, which was a nice ride for him.

On a side note and to my error, I didn’t include Brad Huff in my website’s Downers Grove Poll. The first person to e-mail me and point out my mistake was in fact my dad who also said he’d bet the farm on Huff. In order, to not hear the “I told you so” comment for the next month and a half to a year, I figured I’d mention that and give credit where credit is due.

That’s pretty much all for now. The next round of US National Championship events begins with the time trial on Friday, September 1st. Take care.

-Austin King ” Jittery Joes” 

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