Last Year's Worker Become This Year's Winner

Chip Gray dominated the 2008 Grafton Twilight Criterium, one of the Midwest's largest and most lucrative races, by winning all primes* and first place late in the afternoon of Saturday, June 21st. This performance was all the more sweet for Gray who had spent all of 2007 sacrificing his own interests to help his team mates gobble up podium placings.

Devon Haskell placed second in a hard-fought women's race, while three of the four category two riders survived multiple crashes, barking dogs, beer bottles, and herculean 37 mile per hour re-entries into the peloton in order to finish the professional race.

When asked to sum up the race, the Hitman's response was "INSANE FAST!!!" With a bit more prodding he laid out the play-by-play: "Cesar, Eric, and I had bad starting positions and fought from the gun to move up. After about 5 laps, 2 or 3 guys went down right in front of me in the last turn. I thought for sure I was going over the bars, but managed to avoid towards the curb and came to a complete stop. I should have taken a free lap but instead chased from behind and luckily made my way back into the field after about 2-3 laps of chasing. Needless to say this entirely cooked me to the point of my lungs nearly bursting, which then took about twenty-five minutes to recover. We averaged about thirty-seven mph down the home stretch every single lap. If you were towards the back where gaps opened it was brutal.

The second half was better, was fairly comfortable, and we moved Cesar up to the top seven or eight in the closing laps. This hurt, and I was then slowly pushed back until I popped off the back during the final lap.

Eric was stuck behind a crash in the last few laps and had a hard time catching back on after taking a free lap. They started you back onto the course while riders went by at thirty-seven mph, OUCH!! KAPOW! better luck next time."

The first three photos of this post courtesy of Matt Smith (Vitaminwater-Trek). Thanks, Matt!


*All you Midwestern cycling bloggers note that the correct spelling for an intermediate prize in a cycling race is "prime;" not "preem," "pream," "preme," etc. We will cover "kermesse" next time.