Again a beautiful evening of bike racing for the fourth race of the 2016 GMBC Practice Crit season! I would like to thank John Stewart and Michael Hopwood for marshaling the whole event, Sharon Sturm for registration, Mark White, Dee Barbic and Josh Saxe for helping with the setup! The C race had again 3 starters. The three stayed together for the race, with Sandy and Dee doing most of the work, until 2 laps to go, when Justin Haenel took a flyer and was able to hold it to the line. The ladies did not give up till the finish, though, and followed not far after! For B and A race we followed standard format with a finish sprint, interrupted by 2/3 1k2go coffee primes for the B/A fields. The B race with 12 starters had their largest field of the season. A couple attacks and attempted breakaways, two hotly contested primes, but the group stayed mostly together until the final sprint, which was convincingly won by Mark Hammond for his second win in a GMBC Pcrit! The A race had 16 starters. At the announcement of the primes at the start, Emma Bast asked if there is equal prize payout for the women, and I assured her that, if she were to win a prime, she would indeed get the whole bag of beans and not just 80%. The race was off to a very animated start, with many attacks and break attempts, fun to watch from the side lines. Nothing stuck until 16 year old Junior Gaelen Kilburn, fresh from Junior Nationals (2nd road race, 4th time trial), showed his impressive form and was allowed to solo away. To put things in perspective, the C race does about 60sec laps, the B race about 54sec laps, Gaelen during his break did 47sec laps. Eventually he lapped the field, but just before he did there was another break of 5 riders who eventually lapped the field as well with just a couple laps to go. That made for an interesting finish for the referee, which was won by Jake Hollenbach before Gaelen Kilburn. The winners of the B and A race received a SKIRACK gift card. Since Jake is a Skirack employee, he can’t win that price, but he graciously passed that on to Gaelen. For the last two races of the season we will go back to the points race format. The next 2016 GMBC Practice Crit is scheduled for Tuesday August 2nd. As always we are in need of volunteers, so if you could help for an hour or two, mark your calendars, and bring the family! 2016 Green Mountain Bicycle Club Practice Criterium Date: 7/19/2016 Colchester Watertower Hill, 72F, sunny, windy, perfect C-Race; 3 starters, 21 minutes 1. 197 Justin Haenel 2. 190 Sandy Dupuis 3. 198 Dee Barbic B-Race; 12 starters, 31 minutes 1. 52 Mark Hammond 2. 59 Chad Phillips 3. 96 or 99 Josh Wyman or Loren Voyer 4. 67 Mark White 5. 61 Al Lesage 6. 63 Brook Anderson 7. 66 David White 8. 53 Noah Chabot 9. 64 Eric Vorwald 10. 277 Dunbar Oehmig 11. 98 Dmitri Gurevich Prime 1: 277 Dunbar Oehmig Prime 2: 52 Mark Hammond A-Race; 16 starters, 42 minutes 1. 171 Jake Hollenbach 2. 188 Gaelen Kilburn 3. 133 Bobby Bailey 4. 184 Jared Katz 5. 180 Jamie Wilsey 6. 189 Matthew Owens 7. 121 Josh Saxe -1 lap 8. 186 James Oakley -1 lap 9. 190 Michael Owens -1 lap 10. 182 Doug Gardner -1 lap 11. 187 Willem Hewitt -1 lap 12. 59 Emma Bast -1 lap Prime 1: 121 Josh Saxe Prime 2: 187 Willem Jewett Prime 3: 189 Matthew Owens