June 15, 2009
Smith, Hone and Ongers clean sweep the podium at the Methow Road Race
Winthrop, WA - In the final stage of the Methow Stage Race, the Lenovo team were looking to move their top 5 riders higher up the GC. Nathan Smith was the highest place rider in 5th place, while Mike Hone, Shawn Ongers and Travis Venable were 9th, 10th and 11th after stage 2.
Within the first mile or so of the race, Mike Hone followed the first attack from Brent Carlson from Garage. Shawn Howard from Vertical Earth followed the two and soon the 3 were up the road with a minute or so gap. Hone drived the lead group for 2 laps, with Howard protecting his teammates GC. After the break had formed a happy gap of nearly 4 minutes after 3 laps, Howard and Carlson were rolling through smoothly. Keeping the pace high and consistent.
As the miles went by, Carlson from Garage began to fatigue. Soon it was his time to drop out of the lead group. Mike Hone and Shawn Howard continued to roll and with approximately 20 miles to go, Howard was the next victim to fall out of the break. Howard seized up with cramps and came to an abrupt stop. Hone keep rolling, hoping the finish line would come soon.
With 6 miles to go, the wheel car told Hone that his teammate was bridging and was only 30 seconds back. Hone sat up and waiting for him to bridge. Nathan Smith had launched out of the chase group that had Adrien Hegyvary who was in the lead GC. For some reason, they let Nathan head up the road. Now with Hone, they both were told they had two minutes on the chase group. There was a brief discussion who should take the win, but from a team perspective, it was better for Nathan to take the win since he was in the highest spot on the GC. Hone and Smith crossed the finish line 1st and 2nd giving the win to Nathan Smith and hopefully moving him up the GC. The race was not over, Ongers had also broken out of the chase group and had soloed in for 3rd place with Wes Richards was in 7th place.
This was the first clean sweep for the Lenovo team take all the top three spots for the road race. Not only taking the clean sweep, Nathan Smith moved up to 2nd overall, Mike Hone moved to 5th, Shawn Ongers 6th, Wes Richards 10th and Travis Venable 11th.
The Lenovo team had planned the perfect road race today. It was a great finish to a fun weekend.
