Success at Fitchburg for second year in a row!
The 2009 Fitchburg Longsjo Classic drew one the most stacked fields we’ve seen in years. Full NRC squads lit up the slightly modified stage race. The most obvious difference was the lack of the Watchusset mountain top finish. The race was forced to removed the climb due to erosion and road damage. As a result the circuits themselves were raced harder and faster that ever. “This was one of the hardest stage of a race I’ve ever done” said Zmolik, Empire’s GC leader for the week.
The squad showed how proficient Empire is at time trialling after the prologue holding 4 or th etop 5 amateur spots in the results. Stage 2 was the traditional Fitchburg State College circuit race. The 5k circuit proved to be another hard stage however there was very little shake up in the Overall Classification.The Watchuset road stage is where the fireworks happened. The first hour was fast and furious with every team trying to establish a breakaway. The most promising was Matt WIlsons 40k solo effort but with one to go it was all back together on the climb. Before the climb up to the start of the final lap, Mathis delivered Zmolik into a 28=man split that never came back. Zmolik was able to hold on to finish 18th on the stage moving up to 16th overall. Zmolik was able to hold onto that position through the final stage. The criterium was aggressive adn fast form the gun. A mid-race break went with Empire’s Clayton Barrows in it. The group nearly lapped the field before Bissell brought the break home defending Tom Zirbel’s GC position.
