(HACKETTSTOWN, NJ) September 3, 2002 – After a week of hectic National Track
Championship racing, rain delays, and silver medals, Navigators’ Marty
Nothstein took the victory in the 10-Mile Scratch Race Championship at the
Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania) Velodrome on Saturday. The win earned
Marty another National Championship Jersey and a berth
on the World Championship team, which will compete later this month
in Denmark. Nothstein, the current Olympic Sprint Champion, elected to skip
the Sprint at this year’s championship as he is concentrating on the
endurance events and road racing. Marty had already won three silver medals
in the Points-Race, Keirin and the Madison, but was focused on the 10-mile,
which is also a World Championship and Olympic event.

Navigators’ Todd ‘Nightvision’ Littlehales led the men in blue to a near
sweep at the opening event of the Georgia Labor-Day Omnium under the lights
in Columbus, Georgia on Saturday evening. The Navigators squad took the
victory in addition to 2nd (Vassili Davidenko) and 4th (Siro Camponogara),
with Gord Fraser (Mercury) in 3rd. The 80-minute timed event was a
typically fast criterium and set the stage for the 3-days of racing in the
Atlanta area. Sunday’s 78-mile Fort Benning road race was not as
productive for the team as they were heavily marked by the competition
following their great results the prior evening. Moving to Atlanta for the
Monday Holiday event, the 100-Km road race was part of the US 10K festival
of sports, a popular annual event for cyclists, runners, skaters and
wheelchair athletes, that is held in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta. The
race began in a relatively subdued fashion, but quickly gained momentum as
the peloton reached the first of 10 laps on a 5-mile circuit that included
many of the short, steep hills that are famous in the region.

The field immediately split into two, then three groups as they raced over
the smooth and
wide roads. Following a re-grouping and another series of splits, a
breakaway of 14 slipped up the road to an advantage. Navigators’ sole
representative was Siro Camponogara, but he was outnumbered by the presence
of 4 Mercury riders. Navigators’ Vassili Davidenko soon found himself in
the chase of 15, but the motivation of this 2nd group wasn’t enough to
bring back the leaders. By the end, the leaders had 2-minutes on the rest
of the chasers, and a group sprint was looking large. The sprint was
contested on a downhill section of highway and the racers hit a top speed
of 53 MPH in the dash for the line and the top honors.

In the end, it was Gord Fraser (Mercury) taking the win, followed by a
photo finish for 2nd
between Mariano Friedick (Jelly-Belly) and Navigators’ Siro Camponogara.
The 3-day event
is the latest stop on the National Racing Calendar (NRC).

In local racing action, Navigators’ Tom Leaper and Mark Walters took the
top 2 positions in Overall GC at the Millionaires’ Row Stage Race in
Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The 3-day event featured a Time Trial, Road
Race and a Criterium.