by: Adam Tate
 Back in the days when I use to race at the
Marymoor Velodrome I had a rival know as "the worm". Now I can't even remember the guys real name but he belonged
to the Rainbow Team. At the time it was the largest team in the state where Olympic and World Champion Rebecca
Twigg was just making her mark on the map. Rainbow had a track style at the time of not attacking. Just follow
all the moves and wait for the sprint. Not a bad way to race the track, but they never ever attacked. What's
worse is when in a break they would never work. Of course this tended to really piss off some of the other teams,
me included. Well, the worm was really a pretty good road rider, he was small and slim. He really only rode the
track for training, but he was strong enough to sit in on any of the breaks and get a third place once in a great
while. There was something about the worm that just rubbed me the wrong way. He was too quite and sneaky. I was a
typical showboat sprinter, loud and flashy. I would get so mad at this guy it actually help me get cranked up and
race better. So I guess I shouldn't slight him to much.
One day we were racing a circuit loop race of about five miles at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. The road is one
way and narrow. As we came into the finish I was in the third row of four across. Now if you weren't in the first
or maybe second row you just weren't gona be a factor in the finish. But of course this doesn't stop most of the
guys for thinking they can pull something off. A dangerous situation to say the least. I'm just sitting in
watching things develop with about 500 yards to go. I'm on the outside next to the edge of the road when I hear
someone coming in the packed dirt and gravel next to me, it's the worm. Now we're moving pretty fast at this
point and the worm looks at me and says "let me in", because there are spectators dead ahead. I can't move over
because there is nowhere to move. I look at him and just shrug my shoulders. This must have made him mad. Then he
try's to ride his way in by leaning on me, it get's him nowhere. Because he is focused on me he doesn't see the
people ahead. He then runs over the toes of several spectators including an official with a clipboard. The
official jumps back screaming "look out!" and his clipboard flies into the air with all the papers going in
different directions. This is getting pretty funny to me at this point and I nudge my buddy next to me and say,
"get a load of the worm". Now the worm is really mad and he tries one last time to bang his way past me to get on
the road. There is a lip of about an inch on the roads edge and it takes out the worms front wheel and he goes
down. People are screaming and jumping out of the way. My buddy and I are laughing so hard we have to lean on
each other to stay up. As the worm continues to slide along the ground across the finish line he takes out the
lapboard with a large bell on it. He undercuts the lapboard so that it flips around up in the air, the numbers go
flying every which way and the bell comes crashing down to the ground ringing and bouncing around. We were
laughing so hard at this point our stomachs were hurting.
I never thought of a moral to this story. But maybe it would go something like . . . be careful if your nickname
is the worm because you just might eat dirt. |
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