So the dust has finally settled on the 2012 Witches Cup and as head of race day execution, I wanted to share some thoughts on the day and give a bit of history. The Witches Cup was reborn 6 years ago with Dan Shuman of Salem Cycle, Paul Boudreau of ECV Cycling and me, the owner of Comprehensive Racing. Over the years, Paul shifted his focus to the Gran Prix of Beverly and the Gran Prix of Gloucester, but Dan and I picked up a marketing genius, David Greenway of Choriste Partners and that is the team that has brought the race to you for the last 4 years. But it doesn't end there and that is the purpose of this blog...
This year, the Witches Cup was close to following in the footsteps of a few other New England mainstays on the calendar, and having to cancel. Fortunately, we all know that didn't happen and the race went off on a beautiful Wednesday night in August. This could not have happened without a roughly a million things happening all at the right time, but most importantly, without racers, volunteers and the cycling community. After 6 years of organizing the Witches Cup, this year I realized a few things...
1) Without the support of the cycling community, it is impossible to make a race successful. You can get everything right, have the best course, but unless your race has that "it factor", some heritage or something to make it an instant classic, it's tough! We are blessed with having a cool venue and 30 years of heritage!
2) You need volunteers! Lots of volunteers! And thanks to the awesome members of Comprehensive Racing we have an amazing volunteer staff. This year, we even had some volunteers from ECV and B2C2 helping us out!
3) You need an announcer with boundless energy... Richard Fries, 'nuff said. (This year we also had the luxury of having the legend, Dick Ring sharing announcing duties.)
4) You need racers! And this year, we had 3 awesome races! It doesn't hurt when guys like Adam Myerson, Mark McCormack, Tim Johnson, Luke Keough, Robbie King and Ben Wolfe show their support, but this year it was the ladies that made the biggest statement! The Women of New England bike racing showed that if you put on a race, they will come! We had the largest women's race in our history and we hope to keep this trend alive! Maybe a 4th race to keep everyone happy in 2013?
5) SPONSORS!!!! This year, we scrambled, we begged, we pleaded, and we got lucky! We had some great local sponsors step up! Big thanks to Finz Seafood and Grill in Salem for stepping up when all hope looked lost! Without all of our sponsors, this race would be no more than a group ride around Salem Common. Thanks for making the Witches Cup a marquis event in Salem!
There you have it; not really rocket science but sometimes you just have to state the obvious... I would like to thank my fellow race directors, Dan and David! I would like to thank the rest of Comp Racing! Without our awesome members, we couldn't put on this event! And I would like to thank everyone that took the afternoon off to come out and support the Witches Cup, to race, to watch, to drink a beer, to cheer on the racers and to support our sponsors. So like I said in the title, it takes more than a few individuals to make a race a success, it takes a whole village!
Thanks,
Kurt
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