Corvallis cyclists cross finish line together to complete RAAM

By Jeff Welsch
Mid-Valley Sports editor

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — One more time, George Thomas and Terri Gooch kissed as they traded places, only this time they disembarked from their bicycles and embraced tightly for several minutes in a McDonald's parking lot.

Thomas' eyes watered as he rubbed his partner's back. Gooch pulled his sweaty head close and whispered in his ear.

Soon enough, they would arrive at the Boardwalk and cross the finish line of the 2,958-mile bicycle Race Across America, to be greeted by bullhorns and cheers and pomp and circumstance.

So this moment, 14 miles from journey's end, was the pair's last to share alone.

Theirs to savor becoming the first mixed-relay team to finish RAAM, making them champions in their division and runner-up among all two-person squads.

Theirs to cherish overcoming every physical and emotional obstacle, complication and challenge RAAM could muster in a week.

Theirs to celebrate a blended family of 11, including nine crew members who set aside any personal comforts to guide, coax, nurture and protect their riders every moment of every day.

"This one is very special to me," said Thomas, a 41-year-old Corvallis resident who was competing in his sixth RAAM. "My primary goal was to string together seven days of my greatest racing, and we did that."

Less than an hour later, with a police escort, Gooch and Thomas, a.k.a. Team Velowear, rode together — their first extended time together in a week — onto Atlantic City's Boardwalk, seven days, 18 hours and 5 minutes after leaving San Diego.

They overcame aching knees, throbbing Achilles' tendons, edema and pain so searing in their groins that every bump in the road made them wince. They had generally favorable weather but were still drained by heat in the desert, a storm in Kansas and deceptively wicked climbs in Missouri and West Virginia.

And they did it with the support of a crew that grabbed naps only in fits and starts, ate out of grocery sacks and savored perhaps a shower or two apiece during the week.

Lack of sleep and the emergency-room intensity surrounding caring for the two cyclists left several on the edge of incoherence. By Tuesday, crew chief Stuart Kroonenberg's vision was blurry and mechanic Jim Burger was convinced a two-headed horse with fangs had chased him out of a Pennsylvania pasture.

Thomas and Gooch rewarded each supporter with their own bed at the Atlantic City Best Western, their first real sleep since June 20. Since then, they had nodded off in their van seats, shared a cozy bed in the small motor home or stretched out precariously on a makeshift cot known as "the perch."

"I'm ready to go home," crew member Dan Sundseth said.

Would they crew again? Yes, no and maybe.

"Not for people I know," team masseuse and nutritionist Sue Morris said. "It's too emotional."

The euphoria, relief and fatigue conspired for an emotional finish-line ceremony on a stage with the beach and Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop. As race co-founder Lon Haldemann draped blue ribbons around the necks of Thomas and Gooch for finishing first in the mixed-relay division, some crew members standing in the audience dabbed misty eyes under sunglasses.

Gooch then opened a bottle of champagne, sending the cork flying across the Boardwalk to the Convention Hall next to Trump Plaza.

"The experience of RAAM," she said, "is just exceptional every day."

Naturally, RAAM refused to submit quietly, and the race put forth one final challenge in the wee hours Tuesday as the cyclists rode through the colonial country of southeast Pennsylvania.

Gooch's support van blew a tire Tuesday night on the Commodore Barry Bridge connecting Philadelphia to New Jersey, the crew's second flat. After midnight, a pounding rainstorm materialized out of nowhere on what had been a clear night, slicing Thomas' speed in half and leaving him shivering.

"It was demoralizing," Kroonenberg said.

Said Thomas, who was so weary he fell with his bike as he tried to climb the steps to the award's stand: "It was the hardest part of the race. I almost went over a guardrail."

Yet, as has always been the case for Thomas in RAAM, they punched through the emotional veil and were riding with humor and purpose, albeit gingerly, on heavily trafficked U.S. 322 to Atlantic City.

How they did it in the face of daunting odds is a mystery they're still unraveling.

"You stop visiting the therapist," Gooch surmised. "It's about finishing and bringing in your mental focus."