Originally Posted by roadwarrior
ohmigawd....
big break???
what a hoot...
the
real racers were in Elk Grove Village. Beat the guy in the photo, that's your big break.
...now some more facts....the reason it was at the Speedway was that this was also a fundraiser for the Indiana University Hospital Cancer Center. This happens to be the hospital were one Mr. Armstrong went for cancer treatment, and is the facility, world-wide, for treatment in testicular cancer. Dr. Einhorn invented the current successful treatments for this disease. So, Lance does fundraisers for his foundation and the hospital, and it's his second trip here, his first to drive the pacecar for the 500 (and do a large black tie dinner/fundraiser at $10,000 a table that was sold out), that race "nobody cares about"...
You didn't
really think that the winner of this thing was going to, like, get a contract or anything, did you? Good grief...did you see the ads they ran for this "race"?
I could get into the amount of racing that goes on in Indiana, the juniors from Indiana over in Europe right now, the number of Olympians that have been from here, the multi-time collegiate cycling champions,
Marian College, but it's not worth it. Oh, and the guy that won the 18-24 age group was from, you guessed it, Marian College.
...my sides hurt...
Like I said before, enough people would be delusional enough to think of this as their big break. Look at Dead Roman.
I understand that Lance wants to raise money for Indy. I'm from Indiana and I've read his books. And the fact that all of his fundraising events have been so successful further illustrates how disappointing the low turnout was for this one.
Do you really think this event was better off in Indiana than in California? Indiana may have some good clubs, races, etc., but California has more cyclists total. Not only that, but I'm willing to guess that more people in California are willing to drop $150 on an event like this. And who would think, "Hey, let's just spend the entire weekend in
Indiana and make a vacation out of it"? Indiana may have its good points, but it's not exactly attracting out of towners on its own merit. California could have done that.
Anyway, the whole thing just didn't work out. It looks like they're better off doing "Rides with Lance" if they want to raise money.