<classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 7:33 PM Subject: Re: re tour of Someville...
> When Versus first came on the Sports front it cost our race about 7/8K.
> Then they got bigger and wanted 25 K plus. Our recompense was to sell our
> race to advertisers and keep the profit. That was a little out of our
> league. So we had to pass.
> Now quite a few years later people still remember the coverage for a few
> years and said how great it was and do we still/will we have it again.
> I remember the camera man in the last corner before the 300 yards to the
> finish, right where the racers came close to the curb and he could see
> their eye teeth.
> He said when he felt the rush of speed and the sweat drops hit him, he
> almost fell off the platform!!
> No other sport, any speed gave that intimate feeling as if he was
> teleported into the melee!!!
> From then on he was a super tifosi!!
> Ted Ernst
> Palos Verdes Estates
> CA USA
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Harvey Sachs" <hmsachs@verizon.net>
> To: <ternst1@cox.net>; "Classic Rendezvous"
> <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 6:10 PM
> Subject: re tour of Someville...
>
>
> As usual, a great post from Ted Ernst! I never rode in the Somerville
> race, but Beloved Spouse and I rode our Schwinn Town & Country up to the
> race and back (from our home in Cranbury) one year when it was very hot.
> If you have never stood close to a large pack passing at very high
> speed, make an effort to go to a crit race. The whirring sound of
> chains, tires, and heavy breathing is just otherworldly. A must do
> experience.
>
> harvey sachs
> mcLean va
>
> Ted Ernst wrote\u2026
>
> As a followup to my post about Jeannie Robinson/Omelenchuck,s track bike
> up
> for auction, I only rode the Tour of Somerville once back in 1953.
> It was a wild and wooly race.
> I wasn't always the fastest guy in sprints, but pretty strong, so I
> tried to
> break away in many races, tried to jump away 4 or 5 times but they knew
> better than to let me go and chased me down very hard.
> This was the 10th anniversary and first place was a Chevy car!!!
> The guys knew me a little and didn't want me soloing off. My last jump
> came
> with about two to go, they chased me down and got me with about 3/4 lap to
> go if Iremember.
> I got to sit in close to the front and recover a little before sprint.
> Hughie Starr took advantage of the lull after they caught me and shot out
> with about 1/2 lap to go and got just enuf of a gap that the mad charge
> down
> the long straghtaway couldn't quite haul him in.
> I was winding it up with the guys after the turn with the front of the
> field when some crazy guy came swooping across my/our beam, whacked my RH
> pedal and tore off my toe strap buckle, how he got by me, veering off and
> not any of us falling still makes my imagination stagger.
> I got out of seat for the jump the last 1/4 mile,almost lost my foot with
> that strap gone.
> Remember it was all fixed gear track bikes no brakes. My right foot was
> flopping with the speed and rotation so I held on to my legs and hips for
> dear life and managed a 4th in the field sprint.
> Got a Nice TV, first one for our house so Mom was pleased, but the car
> would
> have been just a little nicer. Oh well.
> The next year in '54 I went back to Somerville with revenge in mind.
> Ray Gasiorowski(Romic Bikes), John Polacek, and I drove to Somerville for
> the race.
> The day before we went out for a little stretch the leg ride and I was in
> back, John in front, Ray was outside on the paved shoulder.
> A long trailer Milk truck was drumming along from Pennsy to N.Y., the
> driver
> must have fallen asleep at the wheel, drifted over, and clipped us.
> The police report said he was going over 50MPH and the crash jarred him
> awake so that his truck was jackknifed in the large geen parkway between
> the
> two double lanes of the divided highway.
> Now it gets interesting.
> Police estimate I was thrown about 55/60 feet from point of impact!
> My bike had the rear brake and seat stays munched into the seat tube.
> John had a fractured skull and was out for three days, Ray was knocked
> down
> but able to ride the race.
> I had a fractured 4th and 5th lumbar verteba, broken nose, twisted but not
> broken left ankle,and my left eye lid was torn so bad they thought I lost
> my eye
> At the accident scene a priest came by and John and I were messed up so
> bad
> he thought we were dead or dying and gave us last rites.
> I started to come around and started thrashing so much trying to get up
> that
> they sat on me to keep me down.
> I woke up in the hospital looking up at a brite light and the first
> thing I
> heard was the doc saying I was going to be OK but he was cutting about 1/4
> inch of my eyelid and couldn't believe my eye was not injured.
> As I was recovering in the hospital the nurses kept wondering during nite
> check if I wasn't peeking at them because my eye wouldn't be covered with
> the shortened lid, took several years for that to stretch and far enuf to
> close, my left ankle hurt for over 15 years about Memorial Day time, and
> if
> I sat with my foot at the wrong angle it hurt for over twenty years till
> it
> finally went away.
> My back healed but I had to always watch how I would lift because it was
> just enuf to make me look bent over like a 100 year oldster.
> Even thogh I started racing again after the Tour Of Somerville in '55, and
> had a fair career, it always let me know it wasn'tquite 100%.
> That's why I respect and admire all the athletes that overcome adversity
> to
> give it their all.
> That's all you get today.
> Ted Ernst
> Palos Verdes Estates
> CA USA