November 16, 2006 - Another White UCI Win

Matt White won his second UCI cross race in two weeks and you can read the full coverage on cyclingnews.com for both the Saturday and Sunday event. Velonews also covered Sunday’s win.

White 3rd at Lower Allen UCI Cyclocross, November 11

This week in the adventures of the Fiordifrutta Cyclocross team brought the boys down to Harrisburg PA for some UCI’n at the Lower Allen Recreation Center. This race was another big opportunity for the cross superstars to hop up on that podium with some top professional riders. The team for the day was Matt White, Michael Cody, Dan Timmerman and Jamie Driscoll.

The course was a twisted hillside of high speed corners, sand traps, and mulch pits, with a gravel start and finish line. There was a little moisture in the grass making for some dicey corners perfect for the Michelin Mud tires. Fresh off his solo win last week, White attacked the opening lap looking to repeat.

The attack drew out the day’s strong men, White, Davide Frattini (Colivita) and Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly). The second group contained Cody, Timmerman, and Driscoll battling Luca Damiani (some Italian Team), Chris Horner (Specialized), Tristen Schouten (Trek/VW), and Matt Kraus (Alan).

Timmerman eventually blew that group apart to take 4th on the day, scattering the rest of the group over a minute or so. Driscoll and Cody held on strong for 10 and 11th respectively. Mean while up front, White was forced to use his head, his self admitted weakest attribute as a cyclist.

The 3 leaders were equally navigating the tricky sections of the course, attacking and countering for a good show. Suddenly Powers was gone, off the front, and White looked to be in trouble behind Frattini. With 5 laps to go Powers had made his move, and now White was working to close a gap to Frattini, who was apparently having a heart attack from following Powers.

White closed to Frattini with a lap to go, and let it come to a sprint, a two up skinny guy sprint to the finish, it must have been funny to watch. White barely lost that sprint after listening to the announcer talk about how badly Frattini was going to spank him for the last 2 laps. Here is a shot just before the podium presentation.

White-Driscoll 1-3 at Highland Park UCI Cyclocross, November 12

Highland Park was relocated due to some flooding to a brand venue this year. It wouldn’t be the hard pack criterium that everyone was used to. Rain turned the hilly course into a mud slide complete with rivers flowing down the course. The same team (but without Timmerman) was present on Sunday as Saturday, but people thought Dan Timmerman was there because we all looked about as scruffy as Dan once we were covered in mud.

Dan even made cyclingnews.com from his couch back in Ithaca or is that Hamblen, I can’t tell the difference. Cody led the opening lap after an amazing show of athletic prowess in the first turn no there weren’t barriers or style points available, he was crashing, and Jeremy Powers (Jelly Belly) is laughing at him. But he recovered beautifully, and kept on pushing.

White took over around the end of the first lap, and ripped open a nice gap to rest of the field, rode that momentum for a few more laps, and the race was his. He kept a cool head, kept pushing, kept the crashes to a minimum, and crossed the line with a safe gap for his second win of the season.

The exciting race on the day was for 2nd place, with Jamie Driscoll right on the heals of Chris Horner, with Cody only a few seconds behind Jamie, and Davide Frattini only a few seconds behind Cody. These gaps were held for lap after lap, but each rider rode so steadily the finish order never changed. Horner got a real sampling of FiordiFrutta today with the team surrounding him taking 1st, 3rd and 4th, hopefully he took some notes for his sake. He was jammed!