This event had an amazing turnout. There were 70 juniors, and the race was 63 miles long; three laps on an often used course spanning Northern Marin and Southern Sonoma County. The weather was perfect for the mid-June event: cool and overcast, but with no possibility of rain. It seemed like every decent junior in the district was there including Frank Kratzer, Mike Zickerman, Casey Kerrigan, Gavin Chilcott, Dyke Andreasen, Stirling McBride, and Mike Bunz. The only notable absence was Greg Lemond.
The race started very slowly, a blessing for those of us who had not gotten a proper warmup. The pace was pretty leisurely until the halfway point when suddenly the whole pack went very fast up some longer hills in an effort to burn off some of the sprinters. The pack came back together, but one rider, Stirling McBride, had gotten away.
The better riders in the pack joked about the stupid move made by Stirling. We let him suffer the lack of shelter that we enjoyed safely tucked away in the large pack. After another twenty miles, we realized that we could no longer see Stirling up the road ahead of us. Some thought that perhaps he had disappeared, but most of the good riders knew that Stirling was probably giving one hundred percent, so again, the race got really fast.
After several miles of a brisk pace, we were dismayed that we had not yet seen Stirling, and the speculation that he had checked out came up again. With two miles to go, it was clear that we could not change whatever fate was at hand, so it was time to jockey for position for a large field sprint. After we rounded the last corner and went over the last rise before the finish, we could see another cyclist up the road moving very slowly, and hoped that we would not have interference to our sprint.
Most of us were boxed in, but teammate Casey Kerrigan managed to safely squeak through a couple of small holes, and joined our other teammate, Gavin Chilcott, near the front of the pack. From my position about twenty riders back, I could see the sprint unfolding. It was clear that the rider up the road was safely out of the way as he had crossed the road and was now facing us. Casey and Gavin crossed the finish line in front of the entire pack!
As I crossed the finish line, I saw the cyclist who I had feared would interfere with our sprint, and it was Stirling McBride! He had "bonked" with four miles to go, but instead of quiting, he had continued on with his brother following him in a car, giving encouragement to the point of screaming. Stirling, whose lead had been almost four minutes, saw the pack closing in rapidly. He could only muster a slow training pace on the final straightaway which was why we mistook him for a casual cyclist. I've never seen a face so devastated, but so happy at the same time. This brand of stubbornness saw Stirling win the Junior National Road Race Championships the next year.