This year's Perrysburg Grand Prix began with a citizens'-5 race. Corey Brinkman, who has been coming on so strong lately, was right in the thick of things throughout the race. Jonathan Wright looked like a sure winner, but was caught by a tire-width at the line. 

It looked as though half the field at the 3-4's race of the  wore the blue jerseys of Saturn of Toledo or the Maumee Valley Wheelmen. Matt Thourot (5th) attempted a one-man break twice, and Adam Slough (17th) once, but neither was in the break of the final few laps. Steve Clark (1st) pulled ahead of the break at the last corner to win, while Matt Thourot nearly closed the gap to finish fifth. Jim Regan was 8th; Rob Foshag 12th and Jeff Crawford 15th.

Zack Clark weighs in on the race.

and Jer Walker sent us this:

"Jer Walker Cat 3 35th

If I were masquerading around as a toy, a yo_yo I would've been. At least that's how I felt in this race. This was the opening event of the Tour Ohio, a 10 day string of crits across Ohio. This crit was in Downtown Perrysburg just outside of Toledo. 

A start time of 6:30 allowed the field of 75 to amass on time. It was hot and sticky at 84 degrees and the humidity around 65%. As I looked around, there were a lot of Saturns in the field. Should be an easy day. Perhaps I underestimated the field on this occasion. This turned out to be one of the toughest races I've done in 2 years. With $1000 to the top 20 on the line, I could see why. From the word go the pace was angry and furious. We were to complete 34 laps of a .9 mile course with two long straight sections and 4 left turns. Basically a giant rectangle. The speed was so high that the whole field was strung out over the course instantly. If you weren't in the front, it was tough getting there. 

I had the misfortune of starting in the back of the bus and was having to claw my way up right from the start. It took 3 laps of sprinting through the straight sections to finally get up there. I tried to rest a bit after the effort to get there and an attack went off the front. Soon enough I found myself sliding my way back in the group again. To make a long story short (I know any of you who actually read these are probably thinking, "It's about time."), I did this for about 60 minutes. Finally after one hour of racing well above threshold, my legs said enough is enough and I got popped off the back with 2 laps to go. Bummer too as I was hovering in the top 20 trying to stay in the cash. 

I finished the last 2 laps with a few other stragglers who got knocked off the train and managed to stay in the race. Our average speed for the race was knocking on the door of 27mph! That's pretty fast for a 3/4 race, heck, that's not shabby for some 1/2 races. Although, my performance stunk, we won the race and I even took away some good things that show my training is still on schedule. Hopefully I'll be flying again sometime around December. My next event will be the Team EQ Time Trial on August 11.

Thanks for reading.

Thank you for your support,
Jer Walker Saturn of Toledo"