For a third-straight Nationals, it looked like Curtis White (Steve Tilford Foundation Racing) would have another heartbreaking race with a disappointing second place.
2021 Champ Eric Brunner (Blue Competiton Cycles p-b Build) had a 12-second gap with just two laps remaining, with his teammate Scott Funston chasing down White for second. Rounding a right-hand turn, Brunner got his front wheel stuck in a rut and went over the bars.
Suddenly White had a chance to exorcise his Nationals demons.
White finished sixth in the U23 race as the favorite the last time Nationals was in Hartford, and wasn’t available for interviews after the race. We later caught up with him weeks after the event, and he told Cyclocross Magazine that he made too many mistakes and raced like an amateur: “I was in the pits a couple times just kind of changing the pressures, changing tires. I crashed early on and I let myself get way too frustrated. It was a course that really rewarded you for staying as calm as possible which it’s kind of silly to say, but I raced it more like an amateur and just went balls to the wall and crazy from turn to turn trying to catch up and that was just really destructive. It just caught up to me in the end and then the last two laps, there was just no way I could have brought the gap back.” Could he use that tough lesson to his advantage?
The first lap was chaos, with […]
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