CRCA Cup Races

by Mihael Ginghina

April 3

The Cup race kicked off the season on April 3rd with all the usual teams eager to fight it out. The off season offered a little re-shuffling, most notably the additions of David Smith and Steve Harvey to team Sanchez/Metro. Their early season results showed they were in fine form and ready do put their new team on the big board. Over the years Kyoo Min's team Renaissance, now under a new sponsor, Sakonnet has won the cup the most times. They have been defeated the last two seasons by George Sutter's Think Racing team, which raced under Breitling Tradeware title last season. This season Think Racing which consist mostly of cat. 1/2 riders merged with Visit Britain which is predominately 3/4. Visit Britain 3/4 squad did recruit a new local sensation named Alex Gulla. Gulla just learned about bike racing late last year, but he was noticed by many right away due to his pure strength. Alex did not need no stink'n tactics. He would simply just attack until he got away alone. The oldest CRCA sub-team, ReMax, won the cup once, and has been in contention for the cup since it's inception in 1998. Although Think Racing has won the cup the last two seasons, here at Century Central we feel Sakonnet is the team to beat.

The first cup race saw a large break get clear with most teams represented. ReMax not liking their chances with their ace sprinter, Anthony Alessio, in the field mounted a chase and got close enough for Kevin Molly to jump across with a couple of miles to go. However, the club champion was too late as Gulla (still a cat 5, although by the time this went to press probably has enough points to be a 3) and Chris Ryan (no sub-team affiliation) slipped away. Alessio took the biggest win of his very young career and Ryan rolled in for second while the club champ had to settle for 3rd.

April 17

The second Cup race was a points format, 7 laps, top three places for every lap except for the first would be awarded points. Large field fast start. Half a lap into the race, the club champ, Sakonnet's Molloy flats. An old team mate of his riding for team Renaissance gives him his wheel, while 3 Sakonnet riders drop back to help bring him back up. Mihael Ginghina the ReMax team manager tries to convince Sutter and Craig Upton (a.k.a. "Smilie") to send his Visit Britain boys to the front and try take out most of the Sakonnet team. Sutter's reply was "we are not strong enough." Granted Gulla was not there, but they still had Mike Henson (clearly in form after competing in Redlands and several other races out West), Peter Barlin, Smilie, Leon Mosier and Sutter. Obviously that would also benefited ReMax. However, the two teams with the most depth were clearly Sakonnet and Visit Britain. ReMax had only 4 riders in the race, with most teams fielding the maximum number of 6 riders. Regardless, the pace was fast and Sakonnet had to work very hard to bring Molloy back. They succeeded in exactly one lap, and they had half a lap to recover for the sprint. Very Impressive. Going into the Sprint, ReMax's Alessio, Molloy and Sanchez/Metro's Smith battled it out for the top 3 spots. This continued lap after lap, with Alessio gaining an advantage over Molloy and then Smith. Visit Britain noticed their sprinters were not up to the task today and launched attack after attack. However nothing stuck due to the constant chase by team Sanchez/Metro, ReMax and Sakonnet, when Molloy was not in the break. The last lap saw a large break finally breaking free. Visit Britain had Henson and Smilie, so Smilie dropped the hammer like only he can do. Molloy was there too while Alessio who was leading by 4 points missed the move. Unfortunately for Molloy, ReMax had Chris Pile in the move who won the final sprint and bumped Molloy to 4th in the final sprint and 2nd overall. The race for the cup is shaping up as the three cat 1/2 teams are battling it out with Team Sanchez/Metro, arguably the top cat 3 team looking to be the spoilers.