Annual Dairy Queen Tour of Columbus(cat 4)
(8/19/2005 to 8/21/2005)

"No Flats"
Erick Armentrout

After a disastrous time at last years TOC I was determined to make it through this year all the way.  At the starting line in the Cat 4’s were GCCA members, Chris Lowry, Felix Guardado, Mike Adrion, and myself Erick Armentrout.  Seeing as how this was my first Cat 4 race I was nervous.  After rolling out and getting past the spot where I flatted last year I was in a great mood.  Once we got past the little bit of highway Felix and Chris had moved to the front and were in good position, Mike a.k.a. Big Daddy was sitting in the pack and I was off the back.  Very quickly I got popped and finished by myself barely.  After crossing the finish line I hardly recognized Clark.  We all then headed to Subway, where we were talking about the time trial that was soon to come.

We all lined up at the start of the TT and oddly enough Big Daddy was the first one to go followed by Chris, Felix, and myself.  Upon further talk afterwards, I think most of us that were out there can all agree that was the longest ten miles ever, despite all of us did it in under thirty-four minutes.  With the conclusion of the first day we had Felix, Mike, and Chris all in the top twenty-five, I came in dead last.

A drive home and a drive back found us all ready for the crit in the early afternoon.  The field had shrunk from around sixty riders to forty-six total.  As had all previous crits during the day the pace was set at a hard blistering pace to pop off as many riders as early as possible.  Yours truly was the first in the pack to get pulled out, after only ten and a half minutes of riding.  Next thing I know Big Daddy is taking a couple of laps at the front then Felix pulls out to lead out for a bit as well.  The officials cut the crit time short by about fifteen minutes.  Some of the riders were mad, but most were happy in general to be done with it all!!!

The final results came just before the Cat 5’s started racing.  In 6^th was Felix, followed by Big Daddy in 18^th, Chris came in 22^nd, and I came in 37^th.  The coolest thing was that Felix, Mike, and Chris were separated by roughly two minutes at the most, these guys were just awesome!!!  Overall the Cat 4’s were out there in force, the team overall had managed to convince a couple of racers to join our team.  Everyone had a great time despite the heat!!!