Planet Energy Tunes up for Tour of Missouri by Winning Chris Thater Memorial

 Planet Energy Pro Cycling Team headed to Binghamton NY this weekend for the Chris Thater Memorial race and the final event of the NRC Series in the USA.  It was an important goal for the team to race flat out cohesively and tune up for the Tour of Missouri beginning one week today.

From the gun the Planet Energy riders made the race hard and sustained.  Francois Parisien opened the race early with a solo effort hoping that some other strong men would join in the attempt.  With no riders participating Francois returned to the bunch and new counter attacks were sprung.  Eric Boily and Bruno Langois and Andrew Randell were all active ensuring good control on the front of the race.  At around 15 laps to go, the most important breakaway of the day formed with Ryan Roth (Planet Energy)Anibal Borajjo (Colavita), Clay Murfet of Kelly Benefit, Amauri Perez of Mengoni, Mark Walters and one additional Empire rider.

The break managed to extend their lead up to around 26 seconds before the peloton became nervous and more active at about 8 laps to go.  David Veilleux of Kelly Benefit did the majority of the chase to bring the gap back for his sprinter Jake Keogh during closing laps.

With the gap getting down to about 10 seconds, Borrajo launched and attack on the hill taking Roth and Perez along and dropping their breakaway companions.  Soon thereafter the peloton made its final surge to rejoin the break. With only 4 laps to go Andrew Randell took a moments lull in the pace to attack solo.  For two laps Andrew kept the pressure on the Colavita team and damaged some of their horsepower for the final sprint.  A bunch sprint was eminent eventually as Colavit led the group into the final lap working on a lead for Haedo.  In the right-left chicane turns at 1 km to go Colavita led the race with Planet Energy in position. During the stretch into the wind before the final turn, Gilbert blasted past the Colavita leading out with Boivin and Lacombe tight on the wheel.  Gilbert took the final turn and into the home straight. Boivin led out Lacombe as hard as could.  Lacombe timed his sprint perfectly winning Chris Thater Memorial over a fast surging Haedo trying to overtake.
Race Report by Steve Bauer

 Results
1st – Keven Lacombe first. 
2nd – Sebastian Haedo
3rd – Yosvany Falcon

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009 at %I:%M %p and is filed under Featured, Races, Rider Blogs and tagged with Andrew Randell, Astana, Chris Thater, Colavita, Columbia, cycling, François Parisien, Guillaume Boivin, Kelly Benefit, Keven Lacombe, Planet Energy, Ryan Roth, Steve Bauer, Tour de Missouri, Tour of Missouri. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.