THE LEAD UP

Going into this event was like going into a new job for the first time. We were excited, we wanted to do it well, and we had no idea what it was really like, especially looking back on it now. I will admit up front we were under-prepared and very naive. Jeff was in the event to boot! That left me and his family in Algona at the only checkpoint as the sole overseers of the first TransIowa. Pretty amazing when you think about it! It was a miracle to have it go as well as it did and with so much unsolicited help.

 

It was mainly Jeff’s job to arrange for sponsors, drum up interest, and secure lodging for entrants for the first running of TransIowa. With his experience and standing within the endurance racing scene, he was able to attract immediate attention from companies, racers, and media. Our hometown paper did a big spread on TransIowa the first year and companies were sending us swag that was unbelievable. It is definitely doubtful TransIowa would have gotten off on such a good note without Jeff and who he was at that time.

 

My job was mainly a supporting one. A gopher, if you will. I did the mapping of the first route though, and besides the main points of Hawarden, Algona, and Decorah, I was pretty free to do what I wanted with the course. Once it was chosen and the winter subsided, Jeff and I did our two-day recon across the state in his little Mazda.

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Prior to the actual event, Jeff and I drove the entire course. We decided it might be prudent to warn everyone about the race. We printed up stacks of informational fliers to stuff into rural mailboxes along the route. That made for some slow going as we traversed the route from west to east. Of course, getting out there in the first place was a five hour drive. We handed out a flyer to every single farm mailbox on the first half of the route that explained to be on the lookout for cyclists the upcoming April weekend. We grew pretty tired of doing this and stopped delivering flyers somewhere around Pilot Knob. Jeff wrote up press releases and sent them to every local newspaper on the route and alerted every police and Sheriff’s office along the route. Not one response was received except from the police chief in Forest City. We deemed all of that a waste of time.

 

Picking our way back, we ran into the B-roads and a couple of dead ends. We found out our maps were wrong and got turned around with our mileage and cues in a couple of places. Keep in mind we were trying to use Jeff’s trip meter on his Mazda to ascertain mileage, so these detours caused us to really stretch our brains doing math. Writing down figures and road names became so burdensome that after the first 40 miles we thought we’d never get the job done. Going around the B-roads caused all sorts of mental mayhem! 

 

We finally got to Algona, where we crashed at Jeff’s parents house for the night. We had a great meal and conversations with Jeff’s folks. Then, bright and early after a hearty breakfast, we were off again. We had abandoned the mailbox stuffing and it made things go a lot faster! It was wet and mucky, it rained part of the time, and Jeff’s Mazda got trashed with gravel crap all over it. This was the first of many times Jeff and I would realize the hidden costs of putting on TransIowa. It was very hard on our automobiles, not to mention the gas money!

 

Once the course had been reconned, we compiled the data as best we could, printed up cue sheets, stuffed race bags, and were ready for the first TransIowa to begin. We had a place to hold the pre-race get together in Hawarden. Pizza Ranch decided to do a special spaghetti dinner for us and let us use their party room at no extra charge. We met all the racers for the first time and handed out the well-stuffed swag bags with the cue sheets for the first half of the event. Ergon grips and Tifosi sunglasses were also in the bags. We had host families putting up riders and the local high school allowed parking on their lot for the duration of the event. We were as ready as we could be. I didn’t know what to expect, and I’m sure Jeff had some anxious moments as well, but we dove on in.

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THE EVENT

The day dawned cool and clear, but Jeff and I were up long before the sun was. We were getting set up ahead of time for all the racers to show up at the local high school parking lot. We left our host home where Jeff, racer Carl Buchanan, his wife Amy, racer Jeff Slade, and myself stayed the evening. Our gracious hosts provided us with an excellent breakfast before I went to fetch Jeff some black goodness and, more importantly, water.

At the start, the riders slowly assembled in the chilly air. I held a brief pre-race meeting under the watchful eyes of a gnome placed on the tailgate of the Europa Cycle and Ski van. I purchased these gnomes (there were five) to set out on the course for fun as the event went on. Afterward, the riders lined up behind the van and at 8 a.m. sharp I tooted the horn on the van and pulled out onto the two-mile controlled roll out. 

After running the riders onto the gravel, I pulled away ahead of them, checking the roads as I went as a last defense against any possible road closings or other trouble ahead of the riders. I avoided the first two B roads but foolishly attempted to drive on the third and final section, which was nearly my undoing. Barely passing through with a lot of prayers and fear of getting the shop van stuck 300 miles from home, I went on through to Algona where I stopped to wait on the riders coming in.

I waited a long time at the checkpoint, but stayed only an hour or so there after the riders started coming in. I became the de facto point man for all things related to the event, which wasn’t too big of a deal. That is, until I started getting some heat from support crew people who thought the time cutoff was unfairly sprung on the riders at the start line and were wanting me to extend - or even abolish - it. Things were getting confusing and my urgency to leave resulted in allowing an extra hour for folks to get through Algona. In the end it didn’t matter, but point taken!

Finally, I was concerned about reports coming in that an injured rider was off course and, worse, belligerently refusing aid. Once again, being the only guy connected with running the event, I was learning that some things were maybe not addressed as well as they should have been in the beginning.

I learned a few things three more times during the course of the event. First was at Pilot Knob, where I scrambled to run three miles, setting up tape and flags to get riders through. All before sunset, which was about an hour after I got there. I had never seen the trail with my own eyes until that very moment! Needless to say, that section didn’t work out very well, but a gracious group of onlookers guided them through on the paved park roads.

Second was in the middle of the night, parked in Lourdes, Iowa, where I was unable to stay awake. I had to doze off for a bit, and when I woke up, I dared not drive over 20mph because I was such a wreck!

Third was in Cresco, Iowa, where I parked to ensure riders coming through would be tallied and their progress into Decorah be called in to the Decorah Time Trial folks who were on guard waiting for them. I fell asleep once again, and even though I thought I missed Ira Ryan and Brian Hannon going by, I actually didn’t. However, at the time I was none the wiser, and those two came in unannounced which caused some friction later on with the Decorah folks.

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THE AFTERMATH

In the end, TransIowa was deemed a success by most folks. At least the idea of it was. Many said to have it again the next year and Jeff and I were very encouraged by that. There was a lot of buzz and stories about the event in Iowa that only nine guys could finish. It gained a lot of credibility due to the names on that first roster, many of which came at the insistence of Jeff Kerkove. Many of those same names didn’t finish the event either, which made it even more remarkable, I suppose.

Some of the guys that I am referring to were/are legendary in the elite endurance community. Folks like Steve Fassbinder, Mike Curiak, and Ernesto Marenchin. They didn’t master the event, which also helped to foment the classic status of TransIowa out of the gate. At any rate, the status of TransIowa was set pretty high right off the bat, which pretty much floored Jeff, and I was not aware of what it had become already.

We were encouraged to start digging into another TransIowa right away, and within a few weeks, Jeff and I had a head full of ideas that we would take into TIV2.