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Ex-trackie wins Race2Replace

Published: Aug. 13, 2006
The boss and his newest employee
The boss and his newest employee
Photo: Ron McQueeney, Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team gained a new member on Saturday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when Andrew "A.J." Smith, a brawny 24-year-old former national junior track champion, won the opportunity to ride as an honorary member of the team at next month’s USPRO time-trial championship in Greenville, South Carolina.

Smith was a promising track rider in the late 1990s who grew disillusioned with the sport while training for the 2000 Olympic sprint trials. After missing out on the Olympic team selection, the Florida native gave up cycling and became a personal trainer with a focus on nutrition, bulking up to 225 pounds through weightlifting. But after watching the 2004 Tour de France, he came back to the sport, and joined the Aerospace Engineering-VMG squad as an amateur.

After losing 50 pounds in one year, Smith began this season riding with the AEG-Toshiba-JetNetwork pro team, but after a series of crashes and injuries, came to an agreement with the squad that he would focus on Discovery’s Race2Replace event on his own.

"As soon as I heard I was going to have this opportunity to race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, basically a 2.5-mile velodrome, I thought it couldn’t be more perfect for me," Smith said at a press conference also attended by Discovery Channel team co-owner Lance Armstrong. "So back in June I said, ‘Just let me go on my own, I’m going to try and win the Race2Replace, I know I can get in shape for that and do it no problem.’ [AEG] said, ‘Cool, we’ll support you.’"

Bikes on the Brickyard
Bikes on the Brickyard
Photo: Ron McQueeney, Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The Race2Replace, held under sunny skies, was divided into four age-group categories, 18-24, 25-34, 34-49 and 50-plus, with men’s and women’s heats held concurrently, for a total of eight categories. Competitors raced against the clock for time in a mass-start format; contestants were given electronic timing devices that posted their finishing time. The winner was determined solely by the fastest time for the 10 laps.

Participant numbers were significantly smaller than Discovery Channel had anticipated. When the event was announced in late April, it was determined that fields would be capped at 500 racers per category, with a maximum of 4000 riders allowed. Come Saturday morning approximately 400 racers had registered, some perhaps put off by the $150 entry fee, others likely seeking a piece of the $150,000 prize list at the Tour of Elk Grove near Chicago, just four hours away.

Far more popular was the "Lap with Lance," which offered an opportunity to ride a lap of the speedway with Armstrong for only $20. An estimated 1200 riders joined the seven-time Tour champ on the track. Discovery Channel team members Fumy Beppu, Roger Hammond and Jurgen Van Den Broeck were also on hand to meet fans, sign autographs and participate in the events of the day.

Net proceeds from the race, the "Lap with Lance" and all merchandise and beverage sales are to be donated to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and the Indiana University Cancer Center, where Armstrong was treated for cancer in 1996.

The 25-mile (40.23km) race around the racetrack known as "The Brickyard" was unique in that it was a race against other heats as well as a race within each category. A headwind on the backstretch of the oval track made breaking away very difficult, and with virtually no riders starting with teammates, tactics were a non-factor.

After Daniel Waite of Dayton, Ohio, won the 44-rider 50-plus category with a time of 1:00:52, Smith won the 25-34 heat with a time of 52 minutes and 42 seconds at an average speed of 28.5 mph. After the 93-rider 25-34 field was whittled down to 19 riders, Smith narrowly caught breakaways Bryce Mead of Rock Falls, Illinois, and Greg Krause of Littleton, Colorado, at the line.

"It stayed together pretty much the whole race, and on the last lap two guys [Mead and Krause] on TT bikes with regular drop bars drilled it off the front and had a good 300 meters coming out of the last turn," Smith said. "I just put the hammer down, threw it in the [12-tooth cog], rode everybody off my wheel and flew by them at the line."

Smith’s time withstood the 18-24 heat, won by Bennet Van Der Genugt of Bloomington, Illinois, in a time of 57:29, and the final 34-49 heat, won by Colavita Olive Oil amateur Christopher Gottwald in 55 minutes and 22 seconds.

Gottwald, a 36-year-old pilot from Vineland, New Jersey, was in Indianapolis at the insistence of his wife, who registered him for the event online. A struggling pro cyclist in the mid-1990s, Gottwald was clearly the strongest rider in the 34-49 heat, but may have been undone by competing in the largest group of the race, with 132 riders. After two laps, the lead group still consisted of 30 riders, and with a group that size, no one appeared willing to contribute to keeping the pace high for fear of flaming out.

"I tried to get things going a few times, but only four or five guys were willing to work," Gottwald said. "I’d calculated how fast we needed to go to beat a 52:42, and I knew by the second and third laps that we weren’t going to make it."

Crowds were sparse at the Brickyard
Crowds were sparse at the Brickyard
Photo: Neal Rogers

Gottwald, riding a Masi Gran Criterium with a Zipp rear disc wheel and a carbon deep-section front, attacked the field with three laps remaining and time trialed in, taking the win with time to celebrate in front of a sparse crowd of several hundred. Though his daughter was there to celebrate with him, Gottwald’s wife, whom he dedicated the win to, was back in New Jersey.

Like all category winners, Gottwald took consolation in a new AMD laptop computer, awarded to all category winners.

Courtney Trabon, 35, of Delray Beach, Florida, was the top woman, finishing an impressive 15th in the 34-49 heat with a time of 57:03. Asked her occupation, Trabon, who was only been riding for four years, answered, "I’m a cyclist. I’m actually here to try and find work in the cycling industry. I love to ride and want to try my hand at racing pro. I’ll work hard as a domestique, I just want a chance."

Smith’s parents and two sisters also traveled from Florida to Indianapolis, and were thrilled to meet Armstrong and see their son on center stage.

"We got lucky," Smith said of his 25-34 heat. "Everyone was working together. There was no teamwork to speak of, but everybody was taking pulls at the front. For the first five laps we averaged 29 miles per hour. There were a couple of guys on TT bikes, with discs and everything, and there was another dude, I don’t know who he was, but he was taking half-lap pulls."

Smith won riding a Trek Madone 5.5 equipped with a Shimano Dura-Ace gruppo and Zipp 404 deep-section wheels on loan.

"The deep-section wheels are from my best friend," Smith said. "Everything on that bike is borrowed. I can barely afford to put gas in my car right now. Everything is borrowed, even these clothes I’m wearing."

In addition to the spot on the team, Smith received round-trip coach air travel for two to Greenville, hotel accommodations for two nights, a Trek Madone 5.9 bike, full Team Discovery race gear, an aerodynamic Giro helmet and $500 spending money.

Smith turns 25 on August 25, but this year, his birthday present may have come two weeks early.

For a full Race2Replace report and a deeper profile on Andrew Smith, see VeloNews issue 16, available August 21.

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