Eric Brunner (WTB Pivot) won the opening round of elite men’s C2 racing on Saturday for Nash Dash CX in Hampton, Georgia. He was 3:34 faster than second-placed Andrew Dillman (Ignition p/b Rigd-Leitner) and another 1:11 better than Casey Hildebrandt (Broken Spoke / TNR Tape) in third, an all-US podium.
“I went out hard, took the hole shot, and kind of buried myself to get a gap,” Brunner said at the finish.
He found that gap part way through the first lap and never looked back.
“I just time trialled it for the full hour. It was mentally pretty tough because there’s a ton of pedalling on this course, it’s quite bumpy and just staying on it and remembering what each of the corners were like, remembering where the little mud patches were. Then, every time getting to the long straightaways before the finish line, I knew that would be a couple of hard minutes.”
It was a sixth year of cyclocross racing at Nash Farm Park, south of Atlanta, and a first time with a UCI inscription. The course was a short distance away from the Atlanta Motor Speedway, host of motorsports racing.
Brunner, who is from Colorado, said it felt ‘weird’ to come closer to sea level at the Georgia race, but wanted to get in a final weekend before the US Cyclocross National Championships, the elite races on December 10 in Kentucky.
“It was a nice mix of straightaways and corners, tight twisty stuff in the woods as well as faster straightaways," Brunner said. “I like to race the week before an important race or championship.”
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