Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 7, 1994 TAG: 9405090156
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAGERSTOWN, MD. LENGTH: Medium
So far, most towns along the Tour DuPont route have been somewhat blase about having 112 world-class cyclists scream through their community for the fourth year in a row. "Done it, seen it, been there" seems to be the general reaction.
Not Hagerstown, Md. Hundreds of people crammed onto the downtown sidewalks Friday to see who would cross that magic line first and win the second stage of this 12-day race.
"This is my first time," said Vivian Reynolds, 77.
"You won't believe your eyes," Martha Wilkinson, 67, told her friend as they sat on a bench on Washington Street and ate caramel popcorn. "It's unbelievable how fast they go around all those blocks."
"That's why I'm here," Reynolds replied.
The friends waited two hours for the racers, who battled headwinds most of the 115 miles from Port Deposit, Md., putting them about 45 minutes behind schedule.
By the time they reached Hagerstown at 4p.m., the crowd was ready.
"OK, Hagerstown, it's your party," the race's official announcer, Jeff Roake, said over a loudspeaker. With the rousing music of Mozart or the "Batman" theme blaring in the background, Roake psyched the spectators to cheer, holler, whistle and clap as the racers sped by.
And they did. One fellow held up his homemade wooden face of Groucho Marx, working the eyebrows and mouth with string.
Why Groucho? "Whaddya think? To egg them on," he said.
Several men in suits and ties admitted they were playing hooky from work to catch a bit of the race. One salesman, although he didn't really leave work, stood in the window of the Grand Piano furniture store and watched.
What had been simple gold and silver bicycle charms at a local jewelry store Thursday were advertised Friday as "Tour DuPont bicycle charms" in a handwritten sign. Saturday, they will be ordinary charms again, the store owner said.
Roake, himself a former professional racer, described what it's like to be on the course, hunkered down, pumping for all you're worth, wondering who's behind you and how fast they're going.
"It's crazy out there, ladies and gentlemen. It's like playing chess at 40 miles per hour."
The crowd was so thick at the finish line that most folks got a better look at the racers on the nearby big-screen TV, glimpsing only the tops of helmets whizzing by a few feet away.
John Payn did a brisk business hawking hot dogs on the corner. He set up at 7:30a.m. and sold his first wiener to "some guy from the Tour" at quarter past eight.
He figured he probably took in double the profits of a normal Friday. While slapping some onions and mustard on two dogs, he offered this advice to Roanoke:
"If there's any hot dog vendors, tell them to stay a little bit out of the action, and have lots of drinks" - a reference to soft drinks for customers, presumably.
Hosting parts of the Tour DuPont once a year is just about the biggest thing that happens in Hagerstown, according to Wilkinson.
"They've had it in the paper for about over a month. ... More and more people show up each time," she said.
Bruno and Alice Jensen drove out to the country last year to watch the race but came downtown Friday because there were "more people."
True, there were definitely more people in Hagerstown than in Jarrettsville, where the racers passed at about 11:15. Nobody, but nobody, got more excited than the second-graders at Jarrettsville Elementary School.
"I especially like the motorcycle riders," said Patrick Hoefler, 7, who had seen the race last year. His own bike has a flat so he can't race around on it, he said.
Nadia Awad, 10, also saw the race last year, sort of. "They were so fast, I really didn't see them."
Another boy said the racers do the entire Tour DuPont without sleeping, which he thought was pretty neat. But a school chum informed him otherwise.
About 200 students stood inside the tennis court fence, dubbed "the cage," to watch the race. They waited, not so patiently. There was no need for an announcer to whip this bunch into a yelling, hooting mob.
Further down the road, where the racers cruised by Troyer's Appliance shop before heading out into the rolling farmland of rural Maryland, Harry Blackstone was less than enthused.
"Tour DuPont. You know, the bicycle thing," he said. Except for more commercialism and advertising by race sponsors, he said, "It was just like last year."
by CNB