Despite a mid-morning rain storm north of Lititz Saturday, there was a good turn out of riders for the Hammer Creek Road Race.
More than 200 riders registered by the Thursday evening deadline for online, advance registration. The ranks of the six category races were further swelled by the cancellation of the competing Deodate Road Race. That race was to be held nearby, near Middletown, Dauphin County, at the same time.
Rich Ruoff, the Hammer Creek race director, said he began getting contacted by riders Friday morning who had been registered for Deodate. Those riders reported getting e-mail messages from Deodate race director David Butterworth that he had cancelled his race.
Saturday was the first time that race promoters Ruoff and Butterworth were to go head-to-head since they parted company as partners of Lancaster-based RedRoseRaces.com at the beginning of June. Butterworth, the controlling partner in that company, cancelled the remaining races on the RedRoseRaces calendar. He said the company was losing money.
Since then, several teams have joined with Ruoff to organize races. The Hammer Creek race was presented by the Swashbuckler/PaRenFaire.com cycling team. Results from the race were still not available online early today.
The next race being organized by Ruoff is the Londonderry/Conoy Road Race, this Saturday. That race is also being presented by the Swashbuckler team. Butterworth has no further races for this year listed on his Pro-Am Cycling website.
