PANDEMONIUM AT THE PRESIDIO!!!
RESULTS

Bowen Knocks Off Gullickson in Final Lap to Win Series!

SAN FRANCISCO – Under enormous pressure by newly crowned national champion Marc Gullickson (VooDoo), Team Saturn bent, flatted and stumbled. But they didn’t break.

After a thrilling hour of racing in front of 5,000 spectators, Saturn’s Frank and Mark McCormack delivered their package, Bart Bowen safe, clean and sound to start the final lap. Bowen charged across a small gap to join Tim Johnson (CCB/Pedro’s/Volkswagen) and Mark McCormack and then dropped them en route to finishing with a slender gap of time. More importantly, however, was that Bowen had sprung away from Gullickson and two others. Starting the final race of the series 10 points behind Gullickson, Bowen had to do more than just beat him, he had to bury him.

This proved no easy task, as the outgunned and outnumbered Gullickson drew heavily on crowd support garnered the day before when he soloed to victory in the National Cyclocross Championships. But the SuperCup crew re-worked the course, added more pavement and increased the lap distance slightly to foster more racing against racers instead of the course.

Fresh from a European campaign, Tim Johnson cracked off the starting line and delivered a blazing first lap that boiled the field down to just seven: himself, Gullickson, Saturn’s three stars, and two riders for the Santa Cruz-based Real Wheel/VooDoo squad, Justin Thompson and Damon Kluck. Then Saturn’s McCormack duo roared to the front to keep such desperate chasers as Travis Brown (Trek/Volkswagen) out of the equation. Gullickson popped off the pace due to a mechanical, but pushed himself back into the lead group. As if to punish Saturn for daring to drop him, Gully then went to the front. For the next five laps he pounded the front, eventually dropping Robinson and Kluck in the process. Repeatedly he put Saturn’s hopes in jeopardy. Frank McCormack flatted twice, but fought his way back both times.

"Frank had the best ride of anybody today," said his brother, Mark. "He came back from two flats."

Photos courtesy of Kate Moore