Athens Twilight
Athens Twilight
“ This was one of the weirdest and most chaotic twilights I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching since 1986” Jittery Joes team manager Micah Rice
Indeed it was. The only way to get the full experience from this race was to be there first hand. Its no secret that the Athens twilight race is one of the most exciting, fastest, wildest, crowd entertaining races the states have to offer. This year, the weather was a near perfect 86 degrees at start time around 9:30 pm. Drunk college students lined the streets early to support these weird guys in super hero outfits that takes over there town for 1 night a year.
Being a formal national champion, I get a chance to be introduced to the crowd as one of the favorites of the race and that is very important for this race because the pace is so high, starting at the back is a nightmare.
Shortly after the race started I found myself in a crash just going into the last turn. I did everything I was capable of not to get hurt and I succeeded. However I did jump the curb and land on top of a young kid standing next to his parents. The kid was okay; he was actually excited to be so close to the race.
At this point a small group of 7 are lapping the field, so I stayed at the front thinking maybe another break can pull the same move and gain a lap on the very small course.
Instead a successful living rider clipped a metal barrier going into turn two and the barrier then came flying into the course and caused a huge 75-rider crash. For me luckily, I was on the outside and as I see riders crashing heading towards me, I lock up the rear break and head as far left as possible. (keep in mind were going about 32mph at this point) as I approached the barrier on the left side of the course, I clipped out my pedals and grabbed onto the top of the barrier and jump over it. The crowed went crazy…most of them tried handing me beer. I hopped back over to get my bike out the carnage and both wheels where badly damaged and I needed to get to the pit. However the pit was on the opposite side of the course. So, I start running to the pit the opposite way of the race and the referee stopped me from going against the race…. so I had to go inside the barriers which was insane because its thousands of people in my way, however I managed and by the time I got to the pit, the race was stopped.
12 laps to go and the race is at a halt for about 5 minutes. 5 laps after the restart, another crash happen right in front of me and I had to slam on my breaks and come merely to a complete stop. I fight and fight and now I’m back in the group. With 3 laps to go, yet another crash happen directly in front me coming once again to a stop. At this point, I said to myself, God is sending me a massage to just chill out and that’s what I did. I road the last 2 laps just to finish the race.
The crashes I told you about were the crashes I was involved in. There were a total of about 10 crashes and most of them accrued in the front half of the group. Guys who lapped the field even crashed out and wasted their hard effort. It was a Bloodbath.