Hot and sticky could describe both the racing and weather for the 2018 edition of the Pensacola Cycling Classic. Temperatures in the 90’s and three races in 2 days at times can unglue even the most experienced riders.

Chris Peterson, Krige Schbort , Brandon Lyons and Sara Domson all jumped out to early leads by posting the fastest time trial times in their respective classes. Later that day on a challenging road race course many were seeking redemption.  The smoke had cleared after the time trial and racers had a clear view of what the competition could do. As the group left the start line of the road race and navigated the first right turn. The leaders had already begun to stretch the field into a select bunch of 4 or 5 racers that eventually thinned to 3 at the base of the only major climb in the race. At that point the nimble Schabort flew up the hill ahead of the others and held the lead for an overall win in the road race. Herriot followed his training partners lead and put time into Lyons on the hill but was reeled back in by the “Bambino” Lyons who was not ready to give up his lead in the H3 classification. By the end of the road race the Bambino had recovered and put more time on Herriot. Meanwhile in H5 Peterson fell behind Mccabe and Duran. Sarah Domson built on her lead and added another minute to her cushion.  Racers had less than 24 hours to rehydrate, refuel and recuperate in preparation for the crit the following morning. The crit is a hard race to put time on a competitor if they are evenly matched. All eyes were on Herriot and Lyons in MH3 as the Bambino was only 5 seconds ahead at the start of the Sunday morning crit. Herriot had never been behind at this juncture of the omnium in his many years of winning it. It took 29 minutes of intense crit racing for Scotland native Herriot to again claim victory in the MH3 classification but it wasn’t easy and may be his sweetest victory of all.

RESULTS

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