Tour of Utah

I really should have been posting stuff each day - but wow! What a fantastic experience this had turned out to be. I'll try and summarize and not bore you too much.

My first day there was ITT day - 14.5miles on the Larry H. Miller Speedway. I got there plenty early and watched some fast cars (and a few slower ones) zip around the track. It was open day, which meant anybody that wanted to race their car there could. I'll do another post about the fun I had touring the Larry H. Miller museum (some amazing cars!!) later.

The first team I saw coming in was the Rock Racing truck. It's pretty hard to miss! Fortunately for me, Ray, the driver, was willing to give me a peak inside the rig. A black leather sofa rests in the slide-out and a shower/bathroom at the back. The layout was comfortable, and the air conditioning cranked up!

As the BMC team van pulled up I was hanging with a couple of other photogs and noticed that a bike seemed a little askew - we ran up, waved them down, and just managed to save a bike from hitting the pavement. Soon Garmin/Slipstream and Ouch/Maxxis pulled in - and then it was everybody arriving at once.

I went down along the front side of the track, and as I was walking along almost got bowled over by a rider running for the track with his bike... it was Dave Zabriskie! I snapped a couple of quick shots as he hopped the barrier to take a warm-up lap.

The highlight of the day for me was the opportunity to be on the back of a motorcycle following Dave Zabriskie around the Time Trial course. WoW! The man is fast (and yet only managed 4th place!) I got some fantastic shots of him - again, I'll try and get those posted later.

I was able to interview a couple of the racers - and will post those as seperate posts when I get everything organized. I've got to get a couple of articles prepared and ready for our local newspaper (the reason why I got the press pass to begin with!) and then I'll also try and get some stuff ready for bikejournal.com