Red, White and Blue

The big news this past weekend, was Nick Frey, taking the first Stars and Stripes jersey for the Haul'n Ass Race Team! Nick earned his sweet new jersey in the U23 time trial event in Seven Springs, PA. Congratulations Nick! I can't seem to find a picture anywhere... but there's gotta be one of him on the podium in the Stars and Bars. Send it to us, if you have one.

From USAC website;
In the men’s U23 event, Nick Frey (Princeton, Iowa/HART) surprised a deep field of 112 riders with a 1.3-second victory over silver medalist Graham Howard (Grand Rapids, Mich./Priority Health) in the 24-kilometer event, while last season’s junior 17-18 national champion, Tejay Van Garderen (Fort Collins, Colo./VMG Racing) placed third. The 40th rider out of the gate, Frey completed the course in 29:51.41 and his mark managed to hold up as several pre-race favorites and higher seeds finished their rides. Howard finished with a time of 29:52.72, while Van Garderen posted the third fastest time at 30:00.13. Frey’s performance also earns him an automatic nomination to represent the United States at the 2007 UCI Road World Championships in September.

Frey, 20 and a Princeton University student, placed ninth in the event last year, but hoped to win a national title this time around.

“My long-term goal was to win a U23 national time trial championship before I moved up,” Frey said. “I haven’t been able to do a lot of big races so far, but I am sort of a time trial specialist and this was definitely my type of course. It had gradual climbs where you can get into a rhythm and that’s what I grew up on riding in Iowa.”

Meanwhile, closer to home, the gang raced the Mike Horgan Hill Climb and the Longmont Crit this weekend. Saturday was nothing but uphill and every man for himself. Dan turned in a 7th place in the hill climb, while the team saw the return of Rowdy and Ewam to racing this weekend. Rowdy turned in a pretty solid time - especially considering it was his first race of the year, and Ewam rode well also, happy to be back in the mix. Sunday HART missed the break, and it was a tough race to do the work to pull things back together. Frustrating to say the least, but the guys are gearing up for some revenge at the Salida crit coming up! Sunday also saw the return of Brent to the group, taking everyone off the injured list, and putting HART at full strength for the upcoming races!

Randy is also racing out at Superweek, and waiting to blast out of the pack and make the HART presence known.