Chalk Creek Road Race

It seems as though Team Excelerator has hit a streak of bad luck, with 3 crashes in 4 weeks, 2 while racing and one on a training ride. Ben Towery was the un-lucky rider this time around at the Chalk Creek Road Race.

Ben, Joel, Jim and Casey all represented this past weekend for TE. Casey made the jump from Cat 5 to Cat 4 and put in a strong race with Joel. The Cat 4 group is dominated by team tactics, but Casey and Joel are strong enough riders to hold there own. They finished strong with main pack. Jim finished in the top half of his Master's 55+ class. He's made a strong recovery since his traing crash just a few weeks ago. It is exciting to see the team progress through the classes and make themselves known.

Ben made himself known as well, a bit more for his bike and body ending wrong side up on the pavement, however. After winning a prime in last Thursday's final Ogden Cash Crit, he had a ton of motivation going into Saturday's race. A long gradual climb out and a fast downhill back to the finish suited him well. After working hard to stay with the leaders, a few attacked at the turn around. Ben and 3 others managed to bridge back to the front 10 or so leaders when Ben took his eyes of the wheel in front of him a a split second, hit it and then hit the ground. He put his bike back together and managed to finish the race in 27th place out of 50 riders. Bloody, bruised and showing bit too much skin, but a strong finish indeed.

Ben will now join Jim Gilland and Kevan Steed in the ULCER 111 Mile Team Time Trial. Cory Price will also be putting in the grueling and hot ULCER miles with his bro-in-law. Our long hauler Jerald Olsen will spend Aug 4th doing the RANATAD, a 160 mile suffer fest with 12,000 feet of climbing through the Mountains of Utah County. After that, we've got the Snowbird Hillclimb and then LOTOJA. Good luck to all and lets keep the rubber side down, eh boys!