At the Joseph Sheehan Memorial Road Race in Leavenworth on May 1st, Big D placed first in both the Cat. 4 and 5 events! Ryan Rochford placed first in Cat. 4, despite a mechanical early in the race.

This from Whales: “After Ryan blew a tire early in the race, The Bat (Shawn Knight) sprinted to the front of the cat 4 pack and pulled the reigns in while Tim Lightenberg dropped back and pulled Ryan back to the field. A incredible effort on everyone’s part to keep Ryan in the race and then pull him to the front for the uphill sprint finish.” Even after Tim’s sacrifice to help his teammate, he still finished in 5th!

Even more drama unfolded in the Cat 5 event, with Casey Coffman and Kurt Wilson at the front, working together the whole way.

The two riders didn’t really even know each other until well into the race, after they decided to get warmed up ahead of the pack. “We go to the front to pull just to warm up, look back and see a 500 yard gap, look at each other and go …”hmm, whatta ya think?… why not? lets do it… and then all the while knowing that once we were away we had Big D teammates who were going to give up for the team and block ….. which is exactly what happend and 100% a team win… !” said Coffman.

The rest of the team, including John Taton, Dan Turner, Stephen Whalen, Chip Zimmer, Lee Wafford, and Ron Marney, kept the field at bay, riding two or three abreast in front and dragging their heels. “And nobody could get around us, our boyz were able to create a gap that the rest of the field apparently did not take seriously,” said Whales.

Kurt came in second behind Casey. Ron Marney finished in 7th, with Taton coming in 11th. Whales and Wafford both finished in the top 20 in a field of 50 riders. Donavon Hottman also did well in his Masters event, placing fourth.

Congratulations to Big D for a great team effort! Special thanks to Roger Harrison of Lanterne Rouge for providing images for our site. See the rest of his images on his Flickr site.