June 23 – With the solo and team races within the Insight Race Across America (RAAM) taking shape, two outstanding newcomers to the event are making their presence felt. These are Solo rider Mike Trevino from San Diego, California, and the 4-Person Team contender, Action Sports, organized by Kerry Ryan of Bakersfield, California.
Trevino is not leading the solo race, but in his debut year of RAAM he has established himself solidly in second place.
As the riders passed through Mountainair, New Mexico, Slovenian soldier Jure Robic led with a margin of about 90 minutes over Trevino, a Cornell graduate, with three-time RAAM winner Wolfgang Fasching riding at about five hours back in third place.
Race director Jim Pitre said, “We’re seeing an exceptional display of athletic ability in Trevino. The big question in my mind is: ‘Is Trevino the next leader of Ultra Cycling?'”
In the 4-Person Teams category, Action Sports has been leading this race since San Diego. But late Tuesday, during the ascent to Pinetop (elevation 9,125′) between Show Low and Springerville, Arizona, Team Vail-Go Fast of Colorado took the lead for the first time in this competition. Both of these teams are comprised of professional cyclists: Action Sports, averaging 22.84 mph, has road pros; Vail-Go Fast, averaging 22.92 mph, has mountain bike pros.
Although neither of these teams has yet broken the average speed record for this category (23.04 mph) set in 1996, both are injecting a new degree of professional athleticism to the race. Action Sports leader Kerry Ryan, 45, was a member of the legendary Kern Wheelmen team – the same team that set the average speed record of 23.04 mph in 1996.
The 2004 edition of RAAM thus far is considerably faster than it was in 2003 in both the Solo and 4-Person Men’s categories. Racing on a virtually identical route, the average speed of the leading team Show Low at Time Station 11 was 20.41 mph, compared to 22.93 mph this year. In the Solo Men’s category at Time Station 15, the leader had an average speed of 15.49 mph in 2003, compared to the 15.93 mph average of Robic in 2004 at this point.
In other categories, Vail B2B Divas held a commanding lead of 3:11:00 over the German Team Frauleins when they passed through Congress, Arizona. The 2-Person category sees the Canadian team Coast to Coast, from Missasauga, Ontario, with a commanding lead of 2:52:00 over Team TBW of Brazil. In the Corporate Challenge category, two teams from Arizona are swapping the lead with only 4-5 minutes separating them. Team Insight is battling tenaciously with Team Rim to Rim for second place, while Team R2R-Kaiser Permanente is holding a comfortable 51-minute lead (R2R stands for “Ride to Remember”).
Solo rider Russ Goodwin was hit by his following support vehicle last night. Although Goodwin was not injured in the collision, reportedly there was a heated exchange, following which, according to Goodwin, his crew left him there, forcing Goodwin’s retirement from the race. It is against race rules to ride at night without a following vehicle.