The former partners of RedRoseRaces.com are going head-to-head Saturday - each with a race of their own.
David Butterworth, the controlling partner of RedRoseRaces.com, is organizing the Deodate Road Race, near Middletown, in Dauphin County. Rich Ruoff, RedRoseRaces’ founder and former director, is organizing the Hammercreek Road Race, north of Lititz, in Lancaster County.
The prospect of competing races would have seemed too good to be true to local bicycle racers less than two months ago, when Butterworth pulled the plug on RedRoseRaces.com. He said the race promotion company was losing money. The move essentially cleared the local racing calendar for the remainder of the season. (You can read Butterworth’s and Ruoff’s divergent accounts of the sudden demise of the company under the “Quick Links” on the right of this page. They are entitled “RRR: Butterworth’s side” and “RRR: Ruoff’s side.”)
Since then, local cycling teams have stepped up to fill the vaccum. With Ruoff at the helm, the Spinners Cycling and Swashbuckler/PaRenFaire teams and the West End Cycling Club quickly organized races. Butterworth, under his Pro-Am Cycling company, reintroduced three RedRoseRaces’ events that had been canceled.
Some local racers declared their loyalty to Ruoff and said they would not participate in Butterworth’s events.
Attendance at both the Ruoff-promoted events and at Butterworth’s events has fallen short of the more than 400 riders who participated in RedRoseRaces events this spring and totals for the events from previous years, although Ruoff’s events have gotten larger numbers.
Results listings show 72 riders participated in Butterworth’s Peiffer Hill Road Race on July 12. Eighty-two riders raced in his Brownstown Road Race on June 28. Last year, Brownstown drew 202 riders and Peiffer Hill had 220.
Ruoff’s Comback Criterium, on July 20, drew 158. It was a first-time race. Last weekend’s Grandview Grand Prix, in which Ruoff was involved, had 245 riders. The 2007 results for the RedRoseRaces’ Great Grandview Criterium were not available online. In 2006, the race had 284 participants in the various categories.
Late this morning, there was 135 riders pre-registered for Ruoff’s Hammercreek race. There was no “confirmed riders” listing this morning for Butterworth’s Deodate race. On-line registration for both races closes at 8 p.m. today. There will be race-day registration Saturday for the Hammercreek race. The Deodate race is limited to advance registration.
