Like many early season races, the Camelia Festival (now known as Land Park) Criterium is sometimes held during inclement weather. But the water that fell from the sky that morning in 1981 did so with such intensity that it was difficult to get to the race because of local flooding. The race course was no better as a number of storm drains were overwhelmed.
Sadly, quite a few riders chose not to ride the race. For some of us, bad weather was not going to spoil our day. Former Olympian George Mount refered to the non-participants as "weenies," explained to us how the athletes in Europe endure much worse conditions, and related how his glasses had enabled him to see through all of the muck. This was in the days before any awareness of eye protection, and George turned out to be right on the mark. Many of us, myself included, became quite debilitated by the small pieces of leaves that got in our eyes. "Smilin' George" was the only one smiling that day.
Watching the races before mine was quite boring. The fields were small and slow and they rode extremely conservatively due to the bad weather. I am sure that my race was no more exciting despite the cast of players which included George Mount and Gavin Chilcott, both of whom rode timidly in order to avoid crashing. As professionals, they would hate to bite it at a "weenie" event. The only excitement (other than riders occasionally going down) seemed to be provided by Robert Ford (also known as the Jamaican Jet) and I as we battled in out in the prime sprints; no one else was even close to being competitive.
Every prime sprint was the same. I did everything I could to get a good position, but Robert Ford would manage to latch on to me and would come around at the last possible instant, beating me to the line by mere inches. Without fail, every single prime sprint played itself out in this manner. The last prime sprint I intentionally sacrificed in an effort to study Robert's methodology.
I felt that I had the keys going into the final sprint. My study of Robert had provided valuable data and now I was ready to put it to use. I could see Robert realize that he had lost sight of me, and as he moved about to get his bearings, he inadvertently played right into my hands, allowing me to latch on. Things were starting to happen fast, and Robert was not able to unload me as we snaked through the pack. I was becoming confident, but I knew that we were not yet clear.
As we came up on the last two riders at the front of the pack, Robert suddenly changed lanes, and then neatly and diagonally swooped right in front of the two riders who were similarly positioned diagonally. It was a brilliant and successful move executed very rapidly; it scraped me off just like the man's stubble on the old commercials for double-edged razor blades. The effort to get back on Robert's wheel cost me enough that when it came down to it, I was unable to fully come around and he took the sprint by a wheel. While I would have liked to have won the race, I privately took some pride in knowing that I had been the reason for the Jamaican Jet to have to use every trick in the book, and had caused him to have to perform at his best.