Behold, the final 2023 standings. Congratulations to everyone on this list!
Standings Update: 4 of 5
October 30
Here we all are, looking at the last race of the season and figuring out what went wrong how to close the deal. The analysis team claims those in bold are locked into their spot, those in italics have a mathematical shot at landing somewhere on the podium, with, amazingly, everyone listed still with a shot.
The top step of Tomorrow’s Stars are locked down by Lua Schmidt and Nick Molnar, with Lua simply having to start the race to qualify to win. Despite the world, and maybe even his parents and his cobbler, being against Colby this year he still has a chance at second but it’s going to take a major slip-up on Ryan’s end to do so. We wouldn’t bank on that.
Lanky rightly determined that calling the Sandbagging Ombudsman to have Ray upgraded was just the thing to do, locking Lanky in as the 4/5 Champ. If this display of “smarter, not harder” doesn’t warm your cockles well, then, you probably shouldn’t even be reading this. Amazingly, there are eleven other racers still alive for the remaining spots, including a few dark-horse candidates further down the standings in Dean Koch & Brayden Gierman who find themselves there not through lack of form, but rather a lack of showing up. There’s really no sugar coating Rigda’s chances for a podium, confirmed by our models predicting an 8th place finish, but never count out the People’s Choice.
Cara Bacher made a Faustian Bargain when donning a JMR kit for the costume race for well-earned laughs, but will having direct contact with the JMR mojo end up costing her? We don’t know how many shifters, crank arms, or frames she’ll have to break for Brianna Ward to pass her by, but we’d be astonished were it not to happen.
All of the Men’s and Women’s elite fields have first place settled with everyone else’s position seemingly to be determined by degrees of bad luck. That all but assures that the Kirtland Park course designer, Nate Molnar, will have the field doing loop after loop around the locust trees.
Like the Men’s 4/5, the Men’s 3/4 is a total crapshoot, with folks up and down the leaderboard in contention and with some missing races, making handicapping much too difficult. Not so for the 45+, however, as this basically is a winner-take-all affair between Mike Adams and Wookie, in which they may tie on points but with the winner of this race taking the first tie-breaker (series wins), nor for the 65+, where Phil Wadsworth is just a start away.
Singlespeed is just wild, with JMR teammates at the top, some decent racers mid-pack with missing points, and everyone within striking distance, but all anybody’s been talking about is what happened to the Heroes? How can Heroes run out of rations mid-race? Are they now the Hand-up Still Really Goods or was this just a virtual flat tire issue? Stay tuned to Kirtland Park!
Standings Update: 3 of 5
October 16
The Wave 1 Men’s 10-12 field is completely wide open while the other two fields have been determined through attrition, but with both Helmuth and Schmidt already missing one race there remains a risk to qualifying. 90% of life is showing up, we all know, and now thanks to NEOCX these two get to learn this lesson firsthand: simply show-up for the last two races and capture the glory; don’t and regret it for the rest of time.
Wave 2 is all about resilience. Not content to simply downvote every one of Lanky’s videos, Ray Wagner has also sabotaged Lanky’s fool-proof plan of waiting for people to upgrade out of his field by parachuting down from the 3/4s. Instead of the quick-fix call to the parole officer that snuffed out his Joy Machine Racing replacement Brady after he won at Brooklyn, this problem looks to be settled between the tape.
Meanwhile, in the women’s field, after years of complaining about always being stoker, Cara Bacher has piloted her way into the lead, winning two races on the trot. As with the Men’s, however, Brianna Ward and our favorite Franek will be taking this one to Kirtland.
Fortunately for State of Ohio champion Jay Ganser, none of the WPCX folks will hit the 4 out of 5 race qualification. Unfortunately, he’s gotta deal with a fast Canadian who recently located to the warmth of Buffalo for better training and the inability of Molnar to offer any buffer by taking points from Bischof or Si. New team name, same stellar team tactics.
Speaking of tactics, the All-stars point deltas are razor thin after Franek and Suppan played a tit for tat game of “you crash here, I crash there” every single lap at Todd Field. If the series is blessed with another mud race then all bets are off on this one.
Like so many, Sam Brode suffered bad luck via a flat at the opening gravel race but has since found the top step in the last two events. Sam is joined by a much-healthier Marie Rote, racing at the front of the field again, and Julie Sroka, both on her heels. Unfortunately, it’s down to those three as the sad, sad news that Caroline El Sanadi, after years of professional Life Coaching, is still suffering from work-bike imbalance, causing two races to have already been missed and thus series disqualification.
Mesarchik the Younger, with a number of fields to choose from, has selected the 3/4s this year, the right choice based on initial results. He’s joined at the top by hot and cold Tanner Tsvetkoff with Mark and Phil applying pressure. The dark horse of the group, Cameron Kortes, has a ton of momentum after finishing the ridiculously long and horrible Michigan gravel racing series, but can it last?
The Master’s fields feature the series’ only twelve-strike perfect 300 scores in Tove Shere and Tom Weaver, who are each a win away from clinching. All other fields and podium positions remain in-play, making Wave 4 at Kirtland the most anticipated wave of the year.
The Hand-up Heroes got off to a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad start to the season, initially finding the economics of hydrating a field with $5 beers challenging, then wariness of a sting operation at Brooklyn curtailing things, before, miraculously, being the only ones to find their footing at DBTRCX. While the JMR pair of Milliren and Klueber have a tight grip at the top, Wave 5 are now all winners again.