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Sutherland grabs the race lead at Arkansas' Joe Martin Stage Race
Tibco's Kiesankowski wins the women's race
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A deluge of early morning rain dampened Fayetteville’s Ozark Mountain roads on the Friday morning prior to the 110-mile second stage of the Joe Martin Stage Race.
When the skies finally parted, it was OUCH-Maxxis’s Rory Sutherland outsprinting a large field to take second place behind Colavita-Sutter Home-Cooking Light’s Lucas Sebastian Haedo. Sutherland secured the overall lead in the process via a 10-second time bonus.
“I gained some confidence yesterday by going well in the time trial, which allowed me to sit in the wheels and be fairly relaxed today,” said Sutherland. “But you can never be too confident going into this finish.”
In the women's race, Tibco's Jo Kiesanowski took the stage win, while Team Type 1's Alison Powers held onto the overall lead.
In order to showcase downtown Fayetteville’s bar and restaurant-lined Dickson Street strip, the road race course narrows from a six-lane road to a steep, alley-like road, before taking a hard right hand turn onto the final straight, a 400-meter uphill drag.
“I came through the corner first with the intent of dropping off Kirk O'Bee,” said the race leader heading into the stage, Ben Jacques-Maynes of Team Bissell. “Unfortunately he got bumped off my wheel on the way to the line.”
“This year there were more people coming into the last corner because the climb up Mount Gaylor wasn’t as hard,” said race winner Haedo, who won the same stage in 2008.
Haedo’s teammate, Alejandro Borrajo, did the bulk of the race’s early work. Borrajo escaped with Andrew Talansky of Amore & Vitta-McDonald’s at roughly 50-miles into the day’s stage, gaining a maximum of eight minutes before Team Bissell eventually chased down Borrajo following the climb up Mount Gaylor.
Heading into Saturday’s hilly, 92-mile circuit race, Bissell, which still claims four riders in the top ten, will be anxious to go on the attack as OUCH-Maxxis prepares to play defense.
“Tomorrow is an even harder course to contain the race on,” said Jacques-Maynes. “We’ll at least make them work for it.”
Semi-sweep for Tibco
With no shortage of fast finishers on its squad, Kiesanowski and Katharine Carroll went first and third in the women’s 64-mile Stage 2 road race. Laura Van Gilder of Mellow Mushroom took second in the field sprint of roughly 20-riders.
“I won this stage two years ago and knew it was a long sprint,” said Carroll. “I ran out of legs, then Jo ran out of legs. But Jo got a second wind and pulled off the win.”
Powers maintained the overall lead after she and her team worked to bring back a dangerous break that emerged over the summit of Mount Gaylor. In the race defining move were Erinne Willock of Webcor Builders, sitting third place overall, and Kristen LaSasso of Mellow Mushroom, in fourth.
“I bridge up to Erinne on the climb, and I think we had a maximum of 40-seconds before we were brought back on the descent,” said LaSasso. “The gap came down really fast, but it was good to make the leader and her team work.”
“Our priority is to win the general classification,” said Powers of her team’s strategy heading into Saturday’s race. “If we ride as well tomorrow and Sunday as we did today, it should happen.”
