GamJams Racing

GamJams Racing Rocks Stony Creek TT

Three racers from the GamJams / Pre-Reg.com p/b Cutaway Clothng rolled up to the line at the Stony Creek TT; three racers ended the day in the top-10.  It was a good day to say the least.

The trio of racers, Greg "It's S.O.P." Wittwer, Nate "Great White Skinsuit" Hakken and Gus Grissom made an overnight trip and enjoyed the hospitality of the Omni In Richmond.  After an evening of pizza, Foster's Lager, and a movie that Hakken said "might have been a chick flick, but I didn't really notice because that Matthew McConaughey is dreamy," they finished the roadtrip with the short jaunt down to the very flat, very fast Stony Creek course.  Hakken, who had raced the day prior at the Church Creek TT, was the first to admit that skinsuits should not "double up" on a weekend.

After a few moments registering and pinning on numbers, Grissom took up his normal role of offering advice and coaching to everyone else.  He said, "it's been a long time since I've done a 40K time trial and I may never have done one that wasn't part of a triathlon.  So, I was pretty nervous.  I thought the best way to relax would be to tell others what to do and that's what I did."  He finished the day in sixth place by setting a solid benchmark time to help plan his training for next year.

Wittwer, however, needed no coaching advice.  "My basic strategy was to treat this like a cyclocross race," Wittwer said.  "I just had to go as hard as I could for something under an hour and I knew I would get enough points to clinch the Cat 3 Cup."  With this strategy in mind, Wittwer executed flawlessly and finished the day with fourth place earning more than enough points for the win in the season-long competition.  He is now looking forward to a new conquest: a criterium weekend in St. Louis where he hopes to mount the top spot as follow up to his recent success in Luray and Stony Creek.

Hakken drew on his own considerable experience to formulate a different strategy.  He admits that he "went out a bit too hard on Saturday because I was trying to keep up with Pete Warner from WWVC."  That didn't work out so well for Hakken, but Sunday was a new day and he said "I just tried to race conservatively and keep enough in the reserve to finish faster than I started.  His results are proof positive that this strategy worked as he put in a fast enough time for eighth place.

While Wittwer scored enough points to win the Individual GC for the Cat 3 Cup, the team also clinched the Team GC for the series.  GamJams Racing wishes to thank Whole Wheel Velo Club for putting up some stiff competition.  In the end, they put three of their own riders in contention to score points for the team.  It was a great end to a long season of competition and camaraderie between and among the Cat 3 Squads. 

French Babies Raised and Soft Cheeses Thrown As Wittwer Dominates Luray Criterium

Greg "Pretty Boy" Wittwer solo'ed his way to the top step of the podium on Sunday at the Luray Criterium, part of the Page Valley Omnium and one of the last events in the GamJams Cat 3 Cup p/b Mountain Khakis.   The daunting course, the heat, and the previous day's exertions were expected to take their toll on most racers, but Wittwer said "when I saw the course, I knew I had a good chance."  It was this confidence and aggressiveness that allowed Wittwer to dominate the rest of the field for most of the race, including the most important part, the last fourteen laps.

Wittwer and the GamJams team had raced the previous day's Page Valley Road Race pretty conservatively in an effort to preserve Wittwer's lead in the Individual GC and the team's overall lead in the Cat 3 Cup.  Unfortunately, that strategy backfired as Wittwer's closest rival, Nicholas Taylor (WWVC) seems to be an uphill sprint specialist and was able to take plenty of points away from GamJams and Wittwer.  Down but not out, the team rolled up to the line on Sunday with a very different perspective.  Wittwer said "there was to be no sitting in on that course for me ... From the start I took off."

Wittwer found himself in a two-man break which was doomed to fail as his companion overcooked a corner and, in Wittwer's words, "dude just went way too fast into the turn and got scared and locked up his wheel."  Wittwer was able to stay upright but hit the curb with enough force to ruin a Zipp 404.  As he hobbled his way to the pit, teammate "Life Alert" Larry Byvick rolled in to hand over some fresh wheels and get Wittwer back in the action.  Course Officials put Wittwer back in front of the pack and he was off to the races with his head down, trying to build up his lead.  In the end, he held off the charging peloton and was able to solo across the line.  Unfortunately, he did not make good on his promise to dismount and carry his bike across the line cyclocross style.  He is, apparently, a big talker  when it comes to victory salutes.

As for the rest of the team, the sentiment was echoed by all that Greg really does not need to be told what to do in the future.  As one of their Armchair Direttore Sportivi reported, "Greg is obviously a crit specialist, the more technical the better.  From now on our strategy is going to be 'Greg, do whatever you want.  Go as fast as you want whenever it feels like time to go fast."  To do otherwise, it would seem, is to try to to train a greyhound to hunt three-legged turtles at the old-folks home.

Editor's Note: The reader should be aware that the writer's phrase "held off a charging peloton," is actually euphemistic code for "lapped the field and let up a bit at the end so they could sprint for table scraps while he coasted across the line."  Wittwer promises photographic evidence next time he laps anyone.  This is, of course, at the insistence of David "Get Off'a My Lawn" Kirkpatrick who reminded the team that "if you act like whatever you want to do is 'just S.O.P.,' then nothing is off the table and everything is possible."  That's just how he rolls.