Well, you have to have been there. The Prologue was a mostly spectacular
downhill ride from the top of the corkscrew to the finish line. About 3
km or so. Average speeds were over 30 mph and the winning speed was
something like 38 mph. The men pack filler were as fast as the fastest
women. Horner was about 5 seconds back.
The circuit race yesterday was a long breakaway that the Webcor guys
held at 2 minutes and then slowly pulled back to 40 seconds by the end.
Horner was in the peloton and his some 45 second deficit wasn't looking
all that great. He also wasn't looking very strong.
Today Health Net was on the attack to take the winner's jersey. The 100
mile road race left at 10:30 or so and got back into the Laguna Seca
track for an additional 3 laps on the circuit. On the way up the hill
onto the track Horner EXPLODED away from the pack. He pulled out a 20
second advantage as he hit the line for the first of three laps.
Healthnet's Jones started after him and was obviously the only one in
the peloton capable of mounting any efforts at all.
All to naught though as Horner extended his lead to about a minute at
the finish line to win the second biggest stage race in California with
no one in sight.
Sea Otter was the usual combination of great venue, hundreds of racers
and moronic management. Monterey County apparently complained last year
because of the stoppage of traffic due to Laguna Seca emptying (as if
that doesn't happen regularly with the car races) so instead of simply
suggesting that Monterey County install a traffic light at the exit like
they feel not the slightest compunction to do in front of a shopping
center, Sea Otter staff instead routed traffic in a 8.5 mile roundabout
route. Pro team cars were taking over an hour to get off of the facility
yesterday. Somehow Sea Otter hasn't managed to figure out how to get
play-by-play from the elite road race so the Pro's left at 10:30 and we
had about one comment about it until Horner broke onto the reservation.
It is really frustrating that a race as important as Sea Otter and with
such great facilities manages to year after year insult virtually every
class of racer they can. It would be nice if there was at least a
modicum of professionalism amoung them but after 5 years of attendance
I've come to realize that we aren't going to see it and so Sea Otter
will always be second rate if they carry on at all with the Tour of
Georgia coming three days after the end of the elite races at Sea Otter.
Because of UCSF's great timing Healthnet only showed 6 riders and this
definitely showed in the results despite some great performances by
individual members.
Also, no one seemed to know where the press tent was nor had any idea of
how to get the finishing results for each race. "Duhhh, they'll post it
on the internet" - yeah, like last year, within the next three months.