Consistency is the name of the game at the American Criterium Cup (ACC) and Project Echelon has staked its claim on the men’s side of the inaugural US national racing series. With two races to go, Brandon Feehery leads the men’s overall and sprint standings while Project Echelon Racing teammate Ethan Craine as the top under-23 rider.
The series has a team competition as well, with Project Echelon Racing just nine points behind current leader Best Buddies Racing.
Feehery has raced all seven of the men’s ACC events, beginning with a fourth-place finish at Sunny King Criterium in April, then adding a fourth at Lake Bluff Criterium during Intelligentsia Cup at the end of July and an assortment of top 15 finishes in the other contests. The team has made the ACC one of its main objectives for the season.
“The American Criterium Cup was on our radar in the beginning of the season. After the first few races we realized we had a good chance to win the sprint competition and possibly the overall as well. This season has been a blast to race against teams like L39ION, Best Buddies and Miami Blazers. The competition this year has really stepped up/ It shows that over last season all the teams have done their homework to step up their game this year,” Feehery told Cyclingnews.
So no wins at an ACC event can net a series lead? Most of the victories on the men’s side, four of them to be exact, have been snatched by Ty Magner of L39ION of Los Angeles, but since the L39ION team opted not to participate in the ACC series that left the points and prizes up for grabs.
At stake is a $100,000 series prize purse to be split equally among men and women after the finale on September 4 at the Giro Della Montagna that is part of the four-day Bommarito Audi Gateway Cup in St. Louis. And the majority of the events have live broadcasts for the pro races.
“For us, at the beginning of the year, we set a goal to be considered the best all-around team in the country. If you look across disciplines, we wanted to be recognized as the best,” said Eric Hill, founder and director of Project Echelon Racing.
“And we feel that we’ve accomplished that between our success at Redlands, taking third at Joe Martin, also taking podiums at pro nationals and then leading the American Criterium Cup. I don’t think that there’s another program that has that type of depth and results across disciplines.”
Project Echelon Racing finds ways to win on a diminished North American racing scene….
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