A week after pulling the plug on the RedRoseRaces.com season, bicycling race promoter David Butterworth is reviving three races under his Pro-Am Cycling banner.
On-line registration will open Thursday evening for the Brownstown Road Race, on June 28, and a week later for the Peiffer Hill Road Race, on July 12, and a week after that for the Deodate Road Race, on August 2.
Butterworth had cancelled those races - along with about 15 other events - last Wednesday, with a email message sent to hundreds of Mid-Atlantic racers. Now, those races are back on. But, it remains to be seen whether racers will come out for them. Already, a blogger here and another here are calling for a boycott of all of Butterworth’s Pro-Am events. Butterworth is being blamed with damaging cycling in general and RedRoseRaces founder Rich Ruoff in particular.
The Spinners Cycling Team - with 42 members is the largest in the area - will likely skip Butterworth’s races, said Rob Allen, owner of the sponsoring Spinners bike shop. “It sounds like people are pretty passionate,” Allen said of the e-mails that have been flying between team members in the past 24 hours.
Allen himself said that he is staying neutral in the controversy.
“Boycotting Butterworth is not going to bring it back the way that it was. It won’t fix the situation,” Allen said. “By taking the races off the grid, I don’t know how that can help racing.”
Meanwhile, Dave Felpel is working to revive the Christiana Criterium race. In recent years the criterium has been the third stage of the RedRoseRaces’ Tour de Christiana. Felpel said he phone rang last week when Christiana officials read of the cancellation of the tour. He had put on the race before passing it to Rich Ruoff and RedRoseRaces a few years ago.
“I’ve promoted the race for about 10 years, so I made a commitment to them that one way or the other, I would try to make it happen,” Felpel said today.
Felpel said he has just begun planning for the race and many details remain unsettled. He is attempting to revive just the criterium on Sunday, Aug. 10 - the same day it was scheduled to be held by RedRoseRaces. Doing so will keep the continuity of the race, which has been held for 17 years, he said.
