Recap of Spartanburg Regional Classic Race – Men’s Pro

by Daniel Carruthers

Fly V Australia’s Jonathan Cantwell takes win in Lightning Spartanburg Regional Classic

Sprint across the Finish Line in the Men's Pro Race

Jonathan Cantwell (Fly V Australia) won the Spartanburg Regional Classic Friday, with a fine sprint win over Jake Keogh (Kelly Benefit Strategies) and Canadian Andrew Pinfold (OUCH p/b Maxxis). This win showed that Fly V is settling in after taking a three-week break down-under and arriving in the USA last Thursday jetlagged. “We are hungry for more wins,” said Cantwell, “and you will see us out there vying for them for the remainder of this series. We have a good team here, with some really good sprinters, and most of us are only just coming into form—not quite 100 percent yet.”

How it UnfoldedIt was an electrifying, fast-paced race from start to finish, with speeds averaging 29 mph. This blistering pace may have contributed to the big pile-up in the later stages, plus several other late crashes.

Cantwell described the last lap as stunningly fast and quite dangerous as “I was almost pressed up against the barriers on one of the turns, but managed to come through,” he said. “The OUCH guys, Karl Menzies and Pinfold, were up front drilling it, and I just made it onto their wheels before corner three and blasted out of the final turn to pass Pinfold and take the win.”

Second-place-getter Keogh also described his finale. “I was floating near the front with Zach Bell (Kelly Benefit) with 1.5 laps to go, and he attacked with me on his wheel. John Murphy (OUCH) came by, and I jumped on his wheel. Menzies and Pinfold came by on the downhill before turn three, with Cantwell sneaking through. Pinfold and I did not make it through, and I came by both of them after the final turn but ran out of road to catch Cantwell.” Keogh also commented on the spills. “The crashes were not so bad near the front, but [I] did get my front wheel chopped, and most of my spokes were taken out!” Keogh was proud to represent Kelly Benefit Strategies/Contour on the podium, but the team wants to win; they have a few more days to do it right.

There was a $250 prime right from the beginning that was nabbed by Patrick Weddell of Global Bike p/b Catoma, and then a break of five riders made up of Carlos Vargas (Team Hotel San Jose), Tom Soladay (Mtn. Khakis), Spencer Beamer (Mtn. Khakis), Zach Bell (Kelly Benefit) and Lisban Quintero (CRCA/Foundation) got established on the front, maintaining an 8 to10-second lead. Quintero and Beamer dropped out of the break, and five more riders bridged across including Bernie Sulzburger (Fly V), Murphy and Bobby Lea both (OUCH) and Ken Hanson (Team Type 1). At that time, the break gap fluctuated between 10-15 seconds on the main field.

With 32 laps remaining, the break was caught by the hard-chasing peloton, and a new breakaway tried to get established with the USA CRITS Speed Week series leader, Mark Hekman (Mtn. Khakis), in it. After 45 laps of lung-bursting, frenetic riding, racers started to tire and started to get careless with their handling skills—especially when they were coming out of corners and sprinting to try and maintain contact. Invariably, under such circumstances, things are going to happen, and they did in a big way. More than 30 riders went down in a massive pile-up on the fourth turn, where the course narrows considerably. However, most of these riders were able to get wheel-changes and get back into the race.

With the lap-countdown on, the pace just got faster and faster, so that the back end of the field was blown to smithereens with riders popping out left and right. With five to go, there was another crash on turn four, and this served to break-up the field even further. The last lap had several crashes on different areas of the course, and spectators would say that this was an entertaining, high-speed, crash fest!

Hekman retains his overall series lead with Vargas moving up into 2nd overall after earning 5th place on the night. Keogh moves up to third overall with his 2nd place finish. It appears that Hekman’s lead might be insurmountable since he has his Mtn. Khakis team supporting him well; but don’t disregard any of the next top five riders in their bids for the overall win.

Kelly Benefits and Team Type 1 are nicely poised to make up some ground, if they can deliver their key riders to the finish. Team Type 1 has two riders, Ken Hanson and Aldo Ilesic, in the hunt for overall title too. Team Hotel San Jose’s Vargas, the most consistent rider of the series, is only 79 points adrift and is currently in the best position to catch Hekman. Hekman’s teammate Tom Soladay is 6th overall and still has an outside chance of getting the overall jersey if he delivers the right punch again.

The Dilworth Criterium in Charlotte, NC is up next on May 2, followed by the USA CRITS Speed Week final on May 3 at the Global BMW Sandy Springs Criterium, in Sandy Springs, Ga.

For live updates on all the races, you can follow USA CRITS announcer Chad Andrews’ Twitter on TotalCyclist. www.biketownspartanburg.org

Full results and series standings can be found at www.usacrits.com.