Those many people who had some reservations about the policy of canceling Ceraland last Saturday certainly would have to agree with the master plan of Dan Daly as Sunday dawned very brightly for the first major rendez-vous of the Indiana Season. Tortuga was well represented throughout the events of the day with Dave Shirley starting our day with a strong showing in the Citizens event. Tom Saccone and I arrived 15 minutes before the start of the new Masters cat3/4 category event and on learning that there were over 40 participants I jumped straight in with the plan of warming up for the upcoming Cat3 event. However it was all pretty plain sailing and in the eventually bunch sprint I finished in 13th after getting my sprint baulked a couple of times in the last 200m. That’ll teach my for trying to start my sprint from about 25th position!
The Cat3 event then became immediately where I was joined by Myron Lewis and Jon Purvis. My plan was to keep a low profile and I successfully achieved my goal and aside from a few laps driving the bunch I succumbed to trashed legs with a lap to go. Jon Purvis started in quite the opposite manner and was a regular in the early salvos and was then ever present on the front of the group as Myron soloed up to the winning break with about 15minutes remaining. The break stayed away and Myron rewarded the teams’ hard work with a strong top ten position!
Riders Saccone, Heffner, Davis, Palmer. Millar and Brauner then lined up for the 40+ event. The brutal pace of the race was exemplified by the fact that no significantly sized breaks formed during an event that typically sees the win contested from a 5-10 man break. Tortuga members were active covering and being part of numerous abortive breaks so the team was pleased with its strong team-work that bodes well for the future.
The Tortugan daily highlight was certainly the performance of new-boy Chris Beck who featured in break of the day in the Cat4 event. Unusually for this event four riders were ‘up the road’ for a full 45mins of the 1hour race. In the finale pulling out a foot from his pedal cost Chris a potential victory but he still managed an excellent 3rd place. He will be rocking it in the higher categories in no time to be sure and is already proving to be an excellent addition to the team!
Remember to check out the Results section of the website to mull over the details of the day!