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Butterfield, Bahati take Dana Point crits
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In stark contrast to the gentle winds coming off of the Pacific Ocean just below the race course, Rahsaan Bahati (Rock Racing) and Nikki Butterfield (Webcor Builders) both powered out of their respective fields to win bunch sprints in the Dana Point Grand Prix in the Southern California city of Dana Point on Sunday afternoon.
In its third year, the race was on the National Race Calendar for the first time, and drew its largest crowds to date for festivities that included rock bands along the criterium course, and a “big air harbor jump” demonstration by world champion downhill mountain biker, Brian Lopes.
Bahati was followed across the line by former Rock Racing teammate and lead-out man, Jeremiah Wiscovitch (Southern California Velo) in second, and Argentinean Sebastian Haedo (Colavita-Sutter Home) in third.
Butterfield’s Webcor Builders teammate, Gina Grain took second in the women’s race, followed by Cath Cheatley (Colavita-Sutter Home) in third.
Lots of Attacks … No Successful Breaks
The .8-mile L-shaped course overlooking Dana Point Harbor included six turns that made it difficult for a break to get away in the 90-minute race. This wasn’t for lack of trying, though.
Floyd Landis came to the race with OUCH-Maxxis teammates Rory Sutherland and Roman Kilun looking for a successful break that never came. “It’s a pretty fast course,” Landis explained after the race. “The turns aren’t too tight, so I figured it was gonna be a field sprint no matter what … so we tried (for a break), but it wasn’t a good day for a break.”
OUCH-Maxxis was just one of many teams that attacked and counter-attacked the 110-man field repeatedly. Finally, with six laps to go, Brandon Gritters (Kahala LaGrange), Neil Shirley (Kelly Benefit Strategies), Rudy Napolitano (Liquid Fitness), and Kirk O’Bee (Bissell) broke free, gaining a miniscule 8 to 10 seconds on the field, the biggest break of the day. Daniel Holloway (Garmin-Holoweko Partners-Felt) bridged with three laps to go, but the men of Rock Racing and Colavita-Sutter Home drove the field to catch them with just two laps remaining.
Wiscovitch came into the day anticipating it would be hard for any attacks to succeed, but the break that finally got away gave him a few tense moments. “I got a little nervous when that started to roll, you know,” he said. “They had some horsepower in there. But I noticed Rahsaan had his guys chasing almost everything back today, so I was banking on the fact he would continue to do it … Between them and Colavita, they kinda kept it under control and brought it back.”
Haedo, whose director, Sebastian Alexandre, also hails from Argentina and translated for him after the race, said he came into the day expecting a field sprint, too. As the repeated attacks began to wear the peloton down, though, he started to doubt. “Toward the end, the race started to get a little harder,” he said. “People started to get tired, so there was a chance there’d be a breakaway … (in the break of five, though) there was no Rock and no one from Colavita, so we knew we could bring that break back.”
Wearing his criterium national champion stars and stripes, Bahati seemed to be the only guy who was surprised it ended with a bunch sprint. ““It’s kind of windy, gaps form quick, and guys like Floyd and Rory, all those strong guys, I thought maybe they would ride a little harder and try to split the field, but that didn’t happen,” he said. He realized about 45 minutes into the race that a break wasn’t going to happen. “The race was so fast, people were cornering well, and accelerating. You could just tell a break wasn’t gonna last.”
Coming into the last lap, Bahati said he just stuck to teammate Nic Sanderson’s wheel. “There was a little bit of fighting, but I think guys have gotta give up when they see me fighting for a wheel, because I don’t give up … So I just followed Nic. He did a great job making sure I was there, looking over his shoulder … I started my sprint 300 out ... I mean, it was a drag race, and I was on the far righthand side, maybe six guys in front of me.”
The men of Colavita-Sutter Home had begun setting their lead-out up with two laps to go, just in time to pick up a $2000 prime. Haedo said that he was on teammate Anibal Borrajo’s wheel up front just 180 meters from the final corner into the finish. “Bahati came from the inside, very fast, with another guy on his wheel, and they turned faster than me,” he said. “Once they turned (into the straightaway to the finish), there was no chance.”
When asked by the race announcer at the end of the day how it felt to take the line in his national champion jersey, Bahati said, “Not to sound cocky or anything, but I feel really good about this season, where my career is going, how fast I’m going … I didn’t win this jersey by accident, so that’s what I wanted to show today.”
And though Landis’ OUCH squad came up short, he had only good things to say about the race, held just miles from his Murrieta home. “It’s a really beautiful race,” he said. “It’s got an In-N-Out Burger trailer. What else do you need really?”
Unlucky Break
In 60 minutes of racing on the same course, the 60-woman field found it nearly impossible to establish a break, as well. And when a somewhat promising break did form just past the halfway mark of the race, a crash behind it put the kibosh on it.
In the 19th lap, a break formed that included seven women representing seven teams: Emma Rickards (Team Tibco), Tiffany Cromwell (Colavita-Sutter Home), Yukie Nakamura (Metromint), Alexis Rhodes (Webcor Builders), Morgan Kapp (Kahala Grange), Nicole Brandt (Proman Hit Squad), and Liza Rachetto (Sugar CRM). They had established about an 8- to 10-second gap when they were stopped by race officials at the start/finish line in the 20th lap. A large crash had occurred on the backside of the course, and the race was shut down to allow ambulances onto the course to help downed riders.
When the race was re-started, everyone was made to leave the line at the same time. “We thought they might do the time gap,” Grain said after the race. “But they didn’t exactly know where the time gaps were. And you’ve gotta understand, in that kind of situation, it is what it is.”
Teammate Butterfield agreed. “It would have been nice for that to get started the same way (with the members of the break given a head start), but you know, we had the race kind of under control. We weren’t really too worried either way,” she said.
Butterfield said there were attacks going the whole race. “A key part of our tactic was to have one in every break, and we did that really well,” she said. Webcor Builders hoped to have a lead-out that included, in order, Katheryn Curi Mattis, Alexis Rhodes, Butterfield, and Canadian Grain. Butterfield said, “My job was to go right before the last corner. The other girls did a fantastic job. Alexis took a huge pull on the last lap, and they were all over everything the whole race, so we didn’t have to chase, which was really nice. I just went as hard as I could 50 meters from that last corner, and it just happened that we got a pretty good gap. There was just myself and then Gina and a pretty good gap, and so she just basically just let me go across the line first. It was really a gift from her, and that was really nice.”
“It didn’t matter who won the race (between the two of us),” Grain said. “We knew when Nikki jumped … a lot of people couldn’t follow us … We had a gap going into the last corner, and then she took the corner really well, so we pretty much had it from there on.”
Having arrived at the race without a sprinter, former New Zealand road and track national champion, Cheatley, said that after all the day’s failed breaks, she made it onto the podium for Colavita-Sutter Home by finding the right wheel. “It was one of those sprint finishes where it was more about positioning than about being super, super fast,” she said. “So I just sort of used my track skills, I guess, and tried to pick a wheel and hold it. So I did.”
Race Notes
In the women’s race, 16-year-old Coryn Rivera (Proman Hit Squad) not only made and countered attacks throughout the race, but came across the finish line in fourth — riding junior gears. The Tustin resident holds 18 national champion jerseys in road, track, and cyclocross.
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