Race Report - California State Championship Road Race 2009
By Jeremiah Wiscovitch

6/17/09 - Bakersfield has been the home for the California State championship where it covers a distance of 92 miles of rolling terrain with 1 major climb of about 3 miles or so. This would mark my first year being able to compete for the jersey seeing how years past I have held a pro license. My Team Captain Josh Webster pleaded with me to do the race with the team as he thought I had a chance to win. I fought my hardest to make every excuse in the book not to go. Seeing as I hadn’t ridden that distance or time on a bike since Redlands stage race back in march I thought for sure I would do nothing but suffer all day. After telling him this along with me being sick all week and not being able to ride my bike at all that week I thought for sure he would give me the go ahead to stay home and skip it, WRONG!

My teammate Kyle Gritters and girlfriend Priscilla Calderon hopped in the truck around 1030pm to make the 2hr drive to Bakersfield. We were able to steal some floor space from teammates and awoke at 7am to contest the 92 mile road race which decides who will get to wear the bear jersey till next years championship race. Well being the slackers that we are we showed up to the race with about 20 minutes to spare till our start time, so we hurried over grabbed our numbers pinned them on and just made it to staging.

Jeremiah Wiscovitch (SC Velo) outsprinted Chris DeMarchi (Amgen/Giant)) and
Rudy Napolitano (Liquid Fitness) for the win and the Bear Jersey.
photo © Priscilla Calderon

Gun fires! and we are now officially racing. The first lap was quite uneventful, as a two man break got away with the field not too interested in chasing seeing how the race was long and it was quite early. The break consisted of two really strong guys Tommy Nelson (Liquid Fitness) and later found out a Pro Triathlete named Devon (Felt Bicycles). The break was really putting in time and doing it in a hurry, by the close of the first lap the duo had a gap of about 4 minutes.

With the two leaders gaining so much time La Grange started to sense the urgency to try and close the gap down or at least stop it from growing. They put their whole team on the front to do their best to help defend Adam Livingston’s Championship repeat chances. After using up most up most of their guys they were a bit short handed to help Adam get to the line first. As the second lap was coming to an end there was a small mixture of guys riding the front in order to bring the breaks advantage down. Along with these guys was my Team Captain Josh Webster, after crossing the line the second time the Felt rider had given up and the lone rider Tommy Nelson had an advantage of about 50 seconds.

So as we went into the last and final lap I asked Josh to not ride the front and save his energy for the second half of the last lap. He was a little hesitant at first as he would have felt more comfortable having the group together. After explaining to him I would rather see Tommy go over the climb the last time by himself to keep the group civil till then, he agreed and saved his matches until Kyle and myself asked him to use them. In the process of him getting off the front the group really came to a screeching halt which was followed by a few guys bridging to Tommy and a couple others trying their hardest to make it to the breakaway group. After picking up the guys that didn’t make it going up the climb the last time, Kyle asked Josh to set tempo to keep the group from slowing down to much on the climb and letting the breaks advantage grow larger. By the top of the climb the break was now up to 2:30 and was 3 strong. From there on it was all or nothing. With a stiff headwind and two strong teammates I had a lot of faith they could bring this move back.

t was virtually a two man all out time trial to the finish to bring this move back to give me a shot to sprint. What I didn’t mention was how bad I was cramping starting the last lap. The distance was quite long for me seeing how all I have been doing is 90 minute efforts on the weekends and my body was really angry with me to say the least. Watching Josh and Kyle ride the way they did was very inspirational and left me wanting to win more for them than for me. With a little help from some other guys these two road back a gap of 2:30 to give me that opportunity to seal the deal in the sprint. Coming to the line Josh stayed on the front to cover things to keep it together for me and with about 1k to go it was all up to me. With 4 Amgen Giant guys left in the field I figured they would set it up for Demarchi or Coxworth. They tried but I think the cluster of riders and tired legs made it a difficult task. The sprint started but I was boxed in by a rider that was doing everything he could and wasn’t moving forward at all. I was forced to slam on my brakes come around the back of him and make up a 10 or so bike gap that Liquid fitness rider Rudy Napolitano already had. I stood up and remembered I was still cramping and was forced to sprint a small gear because my legs were too trashed to stomp on a big gear. So I wound up the small gear fast enough to pass Rudy and take the win by about a bike or so.

I really can’t say enough about how amazing and unselfish my SC VELO teammate’s road. Pretty amazing and I was really happy to be able to seal the deal after their hard work.