Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Tacchino Ciclocross 2010, or, Joe Dombrowski is my hero

Well apparently all it takes is one week off from races for me to become derelict in my blogging duties. Another part of the problem is that I find that races with a bigger party/hang-out scene mean that I spend more time hanging out and a lot less time actually paying attention to the races. I still haven’t even uploaded any of my pictures from this weekend.

Tacchino this past Sunday was another great example of a race that has an awesome hang out scene. The team area where tents are set up is right near registration, the band, the food, and all that good stuff, so people are always walking by, coupled with the fact that it’s right along a nice downhill straightaway so you get some decent, if not overly technical racing to watch without even moving.

Steve’s wrist is continuing to improve but he is still not racing, despite coming thisclose to doing so on Saturday at Fair Hill, so that meant that we went all out with a huge assortment of beer, brats, and veggie burgers to grill. I even decided to bake for the occasion, and it seems like I’m going to have to make the pumpkin doughnut muffins again in two weeks for HoCo. Some of our friends were lucky recipients of encased meats from the legendary “suitcase of sausage” and those went right on the grill as well.

The day was also marked by several “things that you don’t see everyday at a cyclocross race”: fighter jets on maneuvers from Andrews, a bald eagle circling overhead, and, oh yeah, a runaway horse in the middle of the elite masters race! Never a dull moment.

There were also several exciting race moments as well: Chris Carraway taking second in the B race, Mike Birner taking over the MABRA leader’s jersey for the elite men, and Joe Dombrowski crushing the A race, despite starting two plus minutes late after missing the start while completing a leisurely warm up lap. Joe Dombrowski is my hero.

Jim McNeely and the whole Coppi team did another amazing job with this race, and handled the monkey wrenches with aplomb – thanks for an awesome day! Oh and they also had a sweet t-shirt commissioned, which, excitingly enough, came in women’s sizes too! Always a plus.

4 comments:

  1. The pumpkin doughnut muffins were delish!

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  2. I like your take on things...

    time for me to check out the archives

    now I regret leaving as Steve offered me that beer on Sunday...

    it was the right thing to do... although when I got home the family that I felt the pull of was not there... so I twiddled my thumbs for a couple of hours when I could have been hanging out at Tacchino for a bit more

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  3. Thanks, guys, you are the first comments I've gotten here so I'm totally geeked out!

    Gwadz the archives aren't very deep yet, but they'll build with time. Still trying to figure out exactly what I do and don't want to say here.

    We never used to stay for the whole day but this year we have at just about every race and I've really been enjoying it.

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