THIS IS BIGGER THAN BIKES.

Please use these Google Doc links if you need a form letter to send to the president of USAC and UCI. Simply make a copy of the document and sign your name. Feel free to customize the letter to meet your feelings and specific needs you see need addressing.

Emails are listed on the document.

USAC President Brendan Quirk: BQ@usacycling.org

UCI President David Lappartient: contact@uci.ch

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT!

It’s been a damn good few weeks, y’all. 

First off, the super top secret, ask-and-be-neutralized, you-wouldn’t-get-it-anyway tactic of chaos on the men’s team is going swimmingly-er than Michael Phelps in a kelp field, whatever that means **CHAOS**.

Second, the women’s team racked up––in a single week––5 times the number of program top-10s we’ve ever had, highlighted by Grace Arlandson ~pulling a sneaky~ not only infiltrating the Legion leadout with a handful of laps to go, but sticking it for fourth.

Third, Mr. Mustache Davey Dawson pulled out a monster day lapping his local race, finishing it off for the win, then riding 5(!?) hours home, because he’s just hard like that I guess?

And last but not least, Nick Carter became collegiate National Criterium Champion when he cleaned up the field sprint in Albuquerque, NM! 

Kinda buried the lead on that last one, but we’re all jacked up on Mountain Dew and having a hard time prioritizing the staggering levels of production and badassery we’ve seen from everybody in the program. 

You know those little tops that you wind up and up and up with a string and then pull until it’s spinning deliriously round and round until it goes skittering off the coffee table and chases your dog, squealing, into the next room in a calamity of knocked over coat racks and end tables? That’s kind of like our mind right now, and we are friggin stoked on the season to come. 

*echoes in the distance* chaoschaoschaos

GRACE HECKIN’ ARLANDSON.

You absolute animal! After super performances from the team all week down here in Georgia, Grace hit a new high water mark for the program when she inserted herself into Legion’s lead-out train, defended her position for several laps and came home fourth in Spartanburg, getting beat only by an Olympian, former World Tour rider and one of the best crit racers of the past decade.

That’s 4th place for those counting.

And she hasn’t even been at this level for a full year yet. 

It is hard to overstate just how impressive this team has been over these first five races of the 2023 calendar. Team, keep up this work! You’re doing great.

Keep tuning in. Keep watching them grow. Keep watching as the relatively unknown rider reminds you again and again that they came ready to play. 

On the men’s side, Tom came home in 7th, but who cares. GRACE DID THE DAMN THING!

Two more races to go down here at Speedweek, and the vibes are good, chaotic, and only getting stronger.

WE FRICKIN’ LOVE ATHENS

We could expound on that–get you drunk off High Lifes and PBRs from World Famous; tell you how the glow off the Georgia Theater electrifies you lap after lap, 20, 40, 80 times in a relentless blur of rabidly drunk college kids, clouds of smoke and shoulder to shoulder racing. We could bend your ear for days about how it’s the best damn race in the country, with the best damn fans, and the best damn competition. But why?

Just go see for yourself. 

As usual, Athens Twilight did not disappoint. The end result is a high water mark for the program. Grace Arlandson came away with 7th, an improvement on her previous best result at this level by 11 places. And on the men’s side, we were the only team to have two riders (Robert Strobel, Tom Gibbons) lap the field. In the end, they came home in 9th and 4th respectively. Robert improved his previous best result at this level by 13 places. And while the numbers on the result sheet show a vast improvement from last year, the intangible efforts of the team are even more stark. 

Since October, all riders have been unified under Automatic coaching with the goal of maximizing individual potential, and assuring that potential is used to its maximum effect within our system. It was a big investment that came with some risk, but after the first race of the year, it feels validated. Everyone clicked and the team was able to do what they wanted, when they wanted. For the first time since this little program’s founding, we no longer felt like the underdog. We felt in control. 

At the finish there were tears and there were beers. There were yells and hugs, and high fives, and if you believe the rumors, some riders could be seen riding home through the dark streets of Athens at dawn, full of pizza from Little Italy with big dumb smiles on their faces, periodically muttering to each other, “holy shit, I can’t believe we just did that.” 

When asked about the veracity of these rumors, director Lauren Dodge declined to comment. 

The team now looks forward to the rest of Speedweek and beyond with a hard-earned confidence that’s new to this little program.

Follow along as we find our rhythm, and look for opportunities to introduce a little more chaotic good wherever we can. And if you’re an up and coming racer looking to find your rhythm, reach out to the @Automatic_Abus team page about performance coaching. You’re faster than you think.

ATHENS TWILIGHT - GETTING STARTED

OMG It’s happening! DON’T PANIC! DON’T F*&$^&* PANIC!

Automatic Racing is off and running for the 2023 season with a fresh cast of smiling (grimacing?) faces and a renewed sense of purpose. New additions to the team include Minnesotans Grace Arlandson and Robert Deetz; Indianans Esma Taylor and Robert Strobel; Some savage from Philly (Kim Stoveld); Rosie Levy from Cinci; and our resident southern boi, Ashton Dreher from Alabama. 

Mission 1: have fun.

Mission 1a: make everyone else’s race absolutely miserable. 

If you ask us, racing has gotten a bit… boring these past few years. Lots of steady, controlled races with low attrition rates. Lots of bunch sprints. Lots of winners who, let’s be honest, we could have predicted before the start based on budget alone. So what is our goal this year?

To throw a comically oversized wrench into the well oiled machine. A wrench so big you could open a fire hydrant with it. A wrench forged in America’s heartland, that has no sight beyond its singular purpose to grab on, twist, and open the floodgates. 

Simply put, our goal is to create chaos, and we hope you enjoy the show.

Stop by our Neutral Human Support tent before or after the race to fill up on Skratch, laughs, and good energy. Just because we want to send riders to the showers early, doesn’t mean we don’t still want to be friends :)

For a complete roster, visit our team page at automaticracing.org.

Welcome to Automatic Racing: chaotic good.