Race Coverage

Like NASCAR, Only Different...

Monday, 05 July 2010 09:51

By Darin Wieneke

If you felt the need to watch speed this past 4th of July weekend, you..should have traveled to Lake George Regional Park in Oak Grove for MinneMan. The racing was so fast and furious it would have made diehard...NASCAR fans put down their Budweisers to applaud the performances.

It was clear that records were going to fall almost immediately after Race Director Jeremy Sartain announced "3-2-1 Go!" The racers skimmed through the short and shallow .3 mile swim and seemed to be entering TI before becoming completely wet. Thaddeus Ingersoll covered the swim course in a breakneck split of 4:25. David Thompson, Devon Palmer, Kevin O'Connor, and Matthew Payne appeared closely in his rear-view mirror in the men's elite race heading into TI.

Cathy Yndestad and Jenny Shaugnessy exited the water seconds apart in the women's elite race at the 5:01 and 5:04 marks. (It should be highlighted that 18 year-old Gabby Keller recorded the fastest women's swim of the day in 4:59 en route to an age group victory.) Yndestad extended her lead to :09 as she headed out on the 13 mile bike course with a lightning quick transition. She further increased her lead on the bike my pushing the pace on the flat and fast bike course. She averaged 23.5 mph and clocked a 33:12 bike split. Julie Hull matched Yndestad's bike split, and joined Jenny Shaugnessy, Jenny Wilcox, and Sarah Mercer in pursuit of Yndestad heading into the flat 3 mile run. None of these women were able to put too much of a dent into Yndestad's lead and Yndestad claimed another title by crossing the finish line in a race best, 1:00:02. Shaugnessy and Wilcox rounded out the podium by posting finishing times of 1:02:12 and 1:02:31.

The men's podium battle was narrowed on the bike course with Thompson, Palmer, Payne, Patrick Parish, and O'Connor all covering the course in 30 minutes or less. Thompson led the way averaging 27.6 mph and completing the bike leg in 28:15. Thompson barely slowed on the run course as he sprinted to a 16:16 run split and lowered the course record to 51:12. While speedster Parish could not quite catch Thompson on the run, with his race best 16:00 run, he was able to narrowly pass Palmer to secure second place.

Another great weekend for fast and furious racing in Minnesota. Amazingly, it will likely only get faster in Minnesota this weekend at
LifeTime and Graniteman. More on these great races at MTN in the coming
days.... DW

(photos: L-R - DKT en route to career win #62;

CY chalking up W#44; PP (Patrick Parish) remains undefeated in amateur racing in 2010)

dkt cathy patrick