Racing - 2009 Nutmeg State Games Update

I got an email from Secondo (or here he is in action) a day or two after the races at Nutmeg State Games on June 13th (he's in there too, in orange - he's the one that made the move just before the bell) ended. He congratulated me on my race there, said he liked the helmet cam clip, and then, after a pause, asked me a whopper of a question.

"So how come you didn't get the Gold?"

Whadaya mean how come I didn't get the Gold? Did you see that last lap?! Did you see me move up?! Holy smolies what more could you ask for? Okay, fine, I sat up in the sprint, gave up, never really got my sprint going, jumped on the wrong side, still frickin' kicking myself, after all that work on the last lap, but still, you gotta give me credit for trying. I mean, seriously, how much more can you expect me to...

Oh.

He didn't mean it that way.

He meant, in a non-hysterical and most logical way, "The way I see it, the guys in front of you were all from out of state. So how come you didn't get the gold medal?" He helpfully included a list of the results with states in them (I don't know where he got that).

I had to look for myself. I went to USAC, checked the results. Looked at the names, the teams.

Couldn't tell.

Right click on each name, "Open in new tab" (which, incidentally, I think is an awesome feature in a browser), and did that for every name above me on the results.

No CT (at least not when I checked).

I felt that maybe Secondo had something going there. I contacted the promoter of the race, a guy that's been a part of the CT scene for forever, good guy, always trying to help out cycling. Well, I think I say that about pretty much any promoter, but anyway, I contacted him via email.

His email reply was a bit anticlimactic:

"I thought you picked it all up."

Or something to that effect.

Ends up that one guy lives in one place for part of the year, another for another, and he registered in the "other" state. And his license reflects that. Kind of like RTC, who would have medaled twice had he updated his registration information online (and yes, he's still kicking himself).

Anyway, Rick promised to see what he could do to correct things.

Skip forward one week.

I saw him (or rather, he saw me) at the East Hartford race. Told me he had some stuff for me after the race. Then, as promised, he called me over as I rode back to the car. Took out....

No, Hal wasn't there.

A jersey.

A medal.

Dude, you rock!

This is what happens when you have a lot of cats in the house and you put something on the floor... Riley is busy sniffing something, but Hal, Bella, and Tiger (clockwise from top right) are all looking at me.

So, officially, I ought to change the helmet cam clip. Officially I won the gold medal. Officially I won the jersey.

But it feels kind of anticlimactic. I didn't get to be all hyper at the race. Let the missus be happy for me. Share with all my friends there. Stand on the podium. Do all that stuff.

Instead... Well, let's just say that I feel for Pereiro. It's even a bit worse because it's a technicality, technically speaking. My goal has always been to win the race outright, but it didn't happen that way.

On the plus side I should point out that the missus, my friend SOC, and his missus were there at the race (where Rick gave me the medal and jersey), chatting while walking to our cars. I beat them there by rolling over on the bike, then, holding the jersey and medal behind my back, I walked over to the missus with a big grin on my face.

I showed her my catch for the day and her eyes almost popped out of her head. She didn't realize that Rick was there, and therefore that he'd given me the jersey and the medal. And like me, she hadn't been counting her chickens before they hatched.

So at least she got to be happy for me. And so did SOC and Mrs SOC.

With the light drizzle that caused the premature end to the race, the normally pesky mosquitoes seemed to have gone to ground so we chatted a bit more, taking our time packing up. Before we got out of there I had two guys pull up to me.

The first asked about my car, the blue one. Apparently he had had one too, and like me he didn't drive it in the winter. He ultimately traded it in for a "winterable" car (but, in his defense, he also has a van - like me - and some motorcycles - not like me). We traded some "never tell your kids" stories about driving our respective (un-winterable) cars. Let's just say that he has more cajones than I do.

The second one rolled up, friend and teammate of SOC. We all talked a bit, it ended up that he and I had had words earlier in the season (not necessarily angry ones, but they certainly weren't complimentary). A race incident, totally erased from my mind. It came up in conversation and, well, we both laughed at it.

Then we talked about moms, ours specifically. He mentioned the clips I made for her, and asked me something about them. He lost his mom to cancer a few years after I lost mine, and therefore he really appreciated the clips I'd made about the races (this and this) I did to fulfill a promise I made my mom.

We started talking about this year's Nutmeg Games. He pointed out that, well, I got Silver and he got Bronze.

My mind whirred and clicked.

"Wait. You got Bronze? I have some news for you. I was upgraded from Silver to Gold. And that means... You got Silver!"

"No way! What happened? How did you.. wait, where do I get my Silver?"

I thought about it for a millisecond.

"I didn't bring the medal tonight, but next week I'll bring it. It's sitting in my living room right now."

"And what about the Bronze, who gets that?"

I told him who it was, a good guy that I tried to help out a couple times, usually without his prior knowledge. I think you may know who it is.

Mister Newly-Minted Silver sort of knew who it was, and he said that he'd give it to one of that guy's teammates. The Z one (so keep an eye out for that). Or, if he shows up at the Rent (E-Haw, which understandably hasn't caught on as a substitute for "The Rent"), we'll get it to him directly.

Thanks Secondo! And don't expect to see me jumping after you any time soon.