Founder Believes Format Will Get Cycling League Rolling : Cycling: National Cycle League makes its San Diego debut Saturday.
SAN DIEGO — While they applaud the patience of fans who line the streets for hours to watch scant seconds of racing, the National Cycle League thinks it delivers more.
“People aren’t going to stand around for an hour just to watch a blur of riders pass them for 20 seconds,” NCL Commissioner Peter O’Neil said. “They want more. With this format, they can follow the race, they can root. We’ve made cycling a user-friendly spectator sport.”
This likeable cycle racing is coming to town Saturday night as the Zoom, San Diego’s charter entry into the fledgling NCL, hosts Week Five of the 1991 campaign at 7 in the parking lot of the Sports Arena.
O’Neil has described the format as modified criterium racing, made up of two 12-lap halves--every third lap is a sprint--and a 15-minute halftime wedged in between.
“We’ve refined it to make it more interesting to the sports fan,” he said. “And it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this sport out.”
Zoom owner Paul Mendes, a marketing consultant for the Gulls hockey team, has high hopes as the NCL’s debuts in San Diego. Mendes knew little about cycling when he put together a broadcasting package for the league two years ago, but his knowledge has grown in proportion to his increasing involvement.
“It’s very entertaining,” said Mendes, who took over the team when original owner Ann Consiglio died last year. “I saw how competitive the riders were in this format. It’s totally different than the legs that make up the Tour de France. This is an all-out race. I see a big future in it.”
Since Mendes’ first commitment is to the Gulls, he hasn’t promoted the team as much as he would have liked. Likewise, financial constraints have kept him from hiring a general manager to take over daily operations, so he relies on captain and rider Cosme Aguirre to keep things running smoothly.
What’s left is a team high on heart, but low on cash--and victories. League rules mandate a pay scale that ranges from $50 to $1,500 per rider, per race. Zoom members make about $2,300 every race, as a team , and they are in last place in the Pacific Conference.
“We weren’t expecting that much competition,” said Aguirre, 26, who works for a furniture manufacturing firm. “It was more mellow last year. But now, there’s more money and it’s more high-profile. The owners have contracted better riders. We weren’t ready for that.”
Surprised Zoom member Aguirre and three other Mexican nationals, Gaston Larios, Victor Ibarra and Luis Garcia, all of whom attend college in Tijuana, hope to break out of the rut this weekend. They will be joined by two temporary team members: Switzerland’s Martin Graf, now living in Encinitas and L.A.’s John Walsh, who rode for the Chicago franchise last year.
“We’re only in last because the rest of the teams have raced twice already and we’ve only raced once,” Aguirre said, who added that a year of racing together will help the Zoom. “We know each other’s weaknesses and strengths. We know when to motivate a guy. If he’s weak on uphills and another guy’s not so good on the sprints, we’ll set them up so they get a chance to do what they do best.”
Aguirre, a San Diego resident since 1985, has ridden with NCL franchises in Phoenix, Las Vegas--since moved to San Diego--and Seattle. What he likes about the unique format is the emphasis on teamwork rather than individual efforts.
“The first four riders across score points and at the end of the race, the team with the most points wins,” he said. “With five riders racing at one time, it doesn’t matter if one rider is strong. He may win every sprint, but he won’t be enough for the team to win.”
Three teams race each weekend, with five riders per team on the course at one time, racing about 32 m.p.h. on sprint laps, 28 during rest laps. Since races are so short, usually between 16 and 18 minutes long, strategy can’t be changed on the fly. During halftime, the sixth man can alternate in.
“Your strategy has to be set before,” Aguirre said. “Then you make changes during halftime. Fans can blame the coaches if they think he made a bad decision. During the race, because it’s so short, it’s a speed race. If you make a mistake, you’re out of there.”
That was almost the same reaction O’Neil got when he originally started recruiting owners in 1988. When he approached Bob Frazier, owner of the 1989 league champion L.A. Wings, about starting a cycling league three years ago, O’Neil was met with this lukewarm response:
“Could you please find a more boring sport,” was how Frazier explained his interest.
Yet Frazier is the only original owner left from a league that now has two conferences--Atlantic and Pacific--and has gone from its original three to its current 10 teams, with more expansion, home and abroad, in the planning stages.
“I went to a mock up race,” Frazier said, “and Peter asked me who was winning. I pointed to the guy who was getting lapped and about to be taken out of the race.”
The NCL in part thanks countryman Greg LeMond--a three-time Tour de France winner--for the way Americans have warmed up to cycling.
“Greg definitely helped (cycling) in America by winning what’s always been a European sport,” said O’Neil. “But now we can get excited about a sport that’s put on American terms.”
Said Mendes: “Cycling in other parts of the world is much bigger, but we’re making headway here. And we’re still very young.”
When O’Neil set the wheels in motion to start this league, friends warned him that competition from Donald Trump--whose Tour de Trump plans equaled the glitter of what is now the Taj Mahal hotel--would put him out of business.
“People told me to stop because of Donald,” he said. “He was sold with the old European format. Well, now Trump’s event is gone . . .”
On of the problems with the European style of racing, O’Neil said, is American’s propensity to back a city rather than an individual or a corporate team.
“No one’s going to religiously follow corporate teams; that’s why we saw the demise of the 7-Eleven team,” O’Neil said.
Said Aguirre: “It’s not so individual anymore. Instead of going for one rider, people are going for a city team. They can relate more to a city. They may have never heard of a rider, but if it’s a team, they tend to be appreciative. Even for the person who doesn’t know a thing about the sport, they will hear about a city team.”
O’Neil acknowledges this league still has a year or two left of its indoctrination period. But in a time when professionals are making outlandish salaries and ticket prices have skyrocketed, people are looking for alternatives.
“Americans don’t just snap on sports. It takes time,” he said. “But people are sick and tired of paying extra money for football and baseball tickets. I mean, how can an average guy who pumps gas or works in an office relate to a guy whose making millions of dollars?”
Race Notes
According to Paul Mendes, Escondido’s Danny Van Haute, a 1980 and 1984 Olympian, is the only other San Diegan in the league. He races for Pacific Conference-leading Houston . . . The NCL is a nickname lover’s dream: Seattle Cyclones, Houston Outlaws, Gotham Ghosts, Pittsburgh Power, the latter which is owner by former Steeler Franco Harris. . . . Two teams from each conference and two wild card teams will qualify for the World Title Race III, the NCL’s World Series, to be held July 28 in Seattle.
