Tour roundup \ News and notes

In front: The Men Cat 3 race was won by Brent Martin of Stow (Stark Velo), followed by Kevan Rutledge (UPMC) and David Steiner (Spin/RR Donnelley). However, Thomas Dominic maintained the yellow jersey. For Dominic, Sunday was a fairly easy race and it didn’t matter where he finished as long as Brian Sacawa (Kelly Benefit Strategies) didn’t get a top 3 spot. “All I had to do was make sure I finished the race and make sure Brian didn’t get away, which my teammates made sure didn’t happen.” To set the stage, Dominic was 8th in the time trial, then won Friday’s criterium and was third in Saturday’s road race. Rutledge, from Chagrin Falls, but now living in Pittsburgh, was involved in a crash by Garnett Abbey of Burlington, Ontario. Rutledge was leading into the final lap, but then found company on his back wheel. “With about a half-lap to go, we slowed it down and Brent made a move and the two of us [Rutledge and Abbey] got a pretty good gap coming through the final turn. I don’t know what happened, one of us hit pedals and bumped into the another one. He [Abbey] flew into me. I managed to stay up, but blew my rear wheel and rolled in on my rim.” Abbey refused ambulance treatment. “One guy [Rutledge] took me out on the last corner. It wasn’t a very good move on his part. We were fighting for second and third. We took the corner so sharp that his pedal hit pavement, causing his bike to jump. He went in front of me and I T-boned him. He stayed up and I went down.” The 30-year-old Martin, Rutledge and Pete Baughman were in a break and had a good chance to make it stick. “On the last lap, Martin said, “We managed to stick Kevan on to the front into the headwind and I jumped on him about halfway down the backstretch [Commerce Street] and maintained the gap all the way to the line.” Of the crash, Martin said: “I heard someone go down. They were trying to make the gap.”

Double-duty: When Matt Paige of Granville finished his motorcycle role as the “pace car” for riders of the various races, he put on his chief-judge hat and teamed with Ron Garrett in ruling on a last-race challenge.

Eats: The Rosetta Stone restaurant was open for business at the corner of W. Federal St. and Phelps.

Hard-working crew: Samantha House of Akron and Jen Quinlan of Youngstown were busy handling rider registrations all weekend. During the Community Cup last September, Quinlan was a key player. She is the sister-in-law of Erin Quinlan, whose husband was the Tour of the Valley’s organizer/promoter.

Flags: Anthony Magnetta and Lori Bullen stood at the corner of Boardman and Champion during the races to keep the course free of traffic. Both are from Boardman.

Vindicator staff report