Carney, Quinn tops at Manhattan Beach

• Photos

By Steve Medcroft, Special to VeloNews.com

Jonas Carney (Prime Alliance) wrapped-up the American Criterium Championship Series by winning the 42nd Chevron Manhattan Beach Grand Prix Sunday afternoon. This was his fourth win in the seven-race series which includes some of America’s longest-running and most notorious criteriums (Athens Twilight, Superweek, Tour of Somerville) and ended Sunday in Manhattan Beach.

Racers competed on a 1.4 mile loop, an out-and-back course along North Valley Road which included two 180-degree turns and a short, seven-percent grade climb at the halfway mark. With a headwind along one straightaway and the two hairpin turns, both the men’s and women’s races would prove to be sketchy, resistant to breakaways and left to be settled in bunch sprints.

Carney, 32, of Winter Park, Colo., a long-time U.S. domestic criterium and track pro, was favored in the men’s race. He won the event in 2001 and had it all but won in 2002 until he crashed in the final turn of the final lap. Also lined up in the 200-strong men’s field was the man who profited from Carney’s last-year crash, 2002 winner Gord Fraser (Team HealthNet). U.S. Postal’s Tony Cruz and Robert Ventura and the crowd favorite, Rashaan Bahati (Saturn) promised an exciting challenge as well.

But after listless pack shuffling throughout the 90-minute race, and a few minor crashes, it all came down to who of the favorites could put themselves in position for the final 200 meters.

“Everybody knew it was going to be a sprint,” Carney said at the finish line. “The race was only an hour and a half. It wasn’t hot. It wasn’t humid.” Carney had four teammates, including Matt DeCanio and David Clinger who he credits for setting him up for the win. Their tactic? “It’s so hard to break away on this course so we just focused on killing everything before it could break away.”

That tactic kept the race together until the final turn of the final lap. “Clinger got me all the way into the (final hairpin) corner perfectly, in second place,” said Carney. “Gord was right on my wheel. I went a little slow so I wouldn’t stack it like last year. Rashaan jumped early. It was the perfect setup. I was able to run right up into his draft on the home straight and nobody else was there to challenge. It was nice to come back and redeem myself after last year”

The win, although another item to add to Carney’s long and successful domestic-racing resume, doesn’t seem to inspire confidence for his future in the sport. He says, in fact, he and his team are insecure about even having sponsorship for next year. “As of right now, none of my teammates and I know who we’re going to be riding for. We have no idea whether it’s going to be Prime Alliance or another sponsor. We’d like to keep everyone together but it’s a matter of coming up with the money. I hope it pans out. It would be a shame if this team went under.”

Women’s Race:
Former U.S. national track champion Becky Quinn (Vaniqa/Red 5) took the women’s race.

For 65 minutes, the entire group, save a few intermingled Cat 3’s, stayed together and did what they could to sweep up the rich collection of premiums offered by promoters. A contingent of T-Mobile racers, including Katrina Grove and Dotsie Cowden, and local favorites on team Helen’s Trek/VW sent riders off the front during many of the early laps. But no breaks stuck.

In fact, the only real excitement came halfway though the race in the form of a crash, which put eventual winner Becky Quinn into the pavement at the 180-degree turn just before the finish straightaway.

Quinn, 32, of Quakertown, Penn. was sitting second wheel behind a T-Moblie rider coming into the turn. “I hit paint and my wheel just slid out from under me,” she said. After ducking into neutral support, she was pushed back into the race the next lap.

“I had to regroup.” She had five teammates on hand to help. “They did a wonderful job of putting it all back together, not letting any attacks to get off and setting me up for the sprint at the end.”

Quinn, who took second in last year’s race, was her team’s most powerful rider, one of its designated sprinters and the most logical choice to lead the final charge because of her recent successes. She found third wheel coming into the final hairpin. “I was hesitant from crashing there a few laps prior so I slipped back a little. But I came out of the turn and had a good run and went for it, just laid it on the line.”

Her sprinter’s legs took over, propelling her past, among others, three T-Mobile riders to take the win by a margin of less than three-tenths of a second.

Manhattan Beach was the final race of the season for Quinn and the cap to a run of successes including a second, a third and a fifth at track nationals just a week prior. Manhattan Beach was Quinn’s seventh win of the year. “It was great to end the season on a high note,” she said.

Race notes:
Manhattan Beach is an ocean-front community just south of Santa Monica in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Chevron Manhattan Beach Grand Prix moved this year from its traditional slot in the last week of August in the hopes of attracting high-level pro participation from teams looking for a final, race-pace tune up before San Francisco. And although not nearly the size of crowds from past years, hundreds of spectators lined strategic points on the course. $17,000 in total purse money was to be divided among the top finishers in each field.

Men
1. Jonas Carney, Prime Alliance
2. Rashaan Bahati, Saturn
3. Gord Fraser, Team HealthNet
4. Malcolm Elliot, Pinarello
5. David McCook, Team McGuier
6. Jason Waddell, Mathis Brothers
7. Gregg Medinilla, Monex
8. Russell Hamby, Ofoto Lombardi
9. Robert Ventura, U
S
Postal Service
10. Nicko Biskner, Sierra Nevada
Women 1. Becky Quinn, Vaniga/Red 5
2. Gina Grain, Victory Brewery
3. Lara Kroepsch, T-Mobile
4. Jenny Eyerman, Vaniga/Red 5
5. Laura Downey, LaGrange
6. Dotsie Cowden. T-Mobile
7. Katrina Grove, T-Mobile
8. Norrene Godfrey, Team Rubicon
9. Sheba Farrin, LSV/Trek/VW
10. Cheryl Roth, Team Helen’s/Trek/VW