September 2, 2009; Conshohocken, PA, USA: Last year’s Zipp OVCX season opener blew people away, literally, with help from the remnants of Hurricane Ike, which brought high winds on race day that also interrupted power and incapacitated much of Ohio for over a week. This year, a completely new race weekend kicks off the Zipp OVCX season, and organizers are hoping to blow people away with points, prize money, and a Pasta/Bratwurst Festival.
The King’s CX Weekend will take place in Deerfield Township, Ohio on September 19-20. Held on a former golf course at Kingswood Park in the northeastern suburbs of Cincinnati, King’s CX is a two-day cyclocross weekend featuring a non-points “tune-up” race on Saturday followed by Zipp OVCX Tour race #1 on Sunday. “The goal was to provide a warm-up race to get everyone back in the flow before hitting the serious stuff the next day,” says Corey Green, the lead promoter of the event. “It seems equipment problems or other strange occurrences occur in the first race, so how better to get everything dialed in than to race the day before?” Green explains that the course designs also reflect the philosophy of the weekend. “Saturday course is planned as a great warm up course and is fast, flat and less technical. The course for Sunday’s Zipp OVCX race will be more technical and more challenging, but not sadistic.”
One interesting aspect of the weekend will be the overall “stage race” scoring for both individuals and teams. Green explains, “Sunday has standard OVCX purse. The promotion team decided to do the exact same $2,000 prize purse for the non-points race on Saturday, doubling the prize money to $4,000 for the two days. Then we decided to go all out and put in a 2-day purse of $1,000, bringing the total purse for the weekend to $5,000. We are also running a 2-day team competition during the event. A team is comprised of 1 Woman, 1 Male from Cat 1/2/3, 2 Males from Cat 3, and 3 Males from Cat 4, for a total of six riders. The winning team will receive bragging rights as well as travelling trophy. The travelling trophy is an authentic antique cow bell that will be mounted with the winning team’s name engraved on the plaque. It’s going to look impressive in somebody’s bike shop.” As with the individual overall, the placings of each rider will be totaled over the two days with the lowest combined total being the winner. The event organizers have also lined up approximately $2,000 in merchandise prizes for the amateur classes.
Full information on the King’s CX Weekend, including schedules, course maps, directions and pre-registration can be found at BikeReg.com.
