Menoher, Stine Win XTERRA New Castle

By Todd Scott, XTERRA Rep

It was another great day of racing at Westwood Park in New Castle, Indiana just east of Indianapolis.

Road triathletes Patrick Valentine took a very big lead on the swim.  Valentine exited the water with a 1:19 lead over second place Mary Blandford from Missouri.

The 10 mile mountain bike trail at Westwood is classic Midwest singletrack with plenty of flow.  Thanks to the Hoosier Mountain Bike Association (HMBA) and Mother Nature, the trail was in premium shape for this year's race. 

Valentine continued to lead the race at the end of the bike leg, with Tim Menoher closing the gap by just under a half minute.  Ted Ramos posted the third fastest bike split and remained in the podium hunt.

Among the women, Beverly Enslow posted an incredibly fast bike split but it was only enough to move her into second. Cheryl Stine rode the second fastest bike split which moved into the lead.

Stine hung onto the lead during the 4-mile trail run to take the overall women's award.  Blandford ran hard and moved back up in the results to take second.  Rachel Furman had the day's fastest female run split, which was good enough to move her into third place.

Back in the men's division, Menoher poured on the heat and outran Valentine to the finish and the overall race winner position.  Valentine only dropped a spot to second.  Kaleb VanOrt had the overall fastest run split, bumping him into third.

The XTERRA Spirit award went to Tim Yuska from Chicago.  Tim had a flat on the bike course, fixed it, flatted a second time and decided to run with his bike rather than drop out.  His perseverance paid off as he finished still managed to finish second in his age category.

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