TETON VILLAGE, Wyo. — Make it three in a row for Cameron Hoffman, and throw in a course record as a bonus.
Hoffman, a 31-year-old from Clearfield, claimed his third consecutive victory at LOTOJA last Saturday, covering the 206-mile cycling course from Logan to Jackson, Wyo., with a record time of nine hours, two minutes and 52.168 seconds — just a blink of an eye faster than Las Vegas' David Francis, who crossed the line less than two-tenths of a second behind.
"I'm just thrilled to have the record," Hoffman said. "That's something I didn't really think I was going to try to do."
Hoffman said bike races typically have too many people at the front with a lot of tactics being played for an endurance record to fall. But after he and two other cyclists, Francis and Salt Lake's Robert Lofgran, drilled it up the first climb outside Preston, Idaho, they found themselves with a gap of nearly four minutes.
Rather than wait for others to regroup and join in the fight against what proved to be nasty headwinds for most of the day, the threesome fought on until the next set of climbs heading from Idaho into Wyoming, where Hoffman said he nearly lost the race.
"I don't know what happened," he said, explaining how he was left behind by the other two heading up Salt River Pass. "My legs felt swollen and my stomach wasn't good. ... They went on ahead without me, but at the top, I think they decided to wait. They needed as much horsepower as we could get. Three riders is better than two."
That move may have been what allowed Hoffman to save himself and go on to win.
The trio moved through Star Valley and built a time gap of as much as 17 minutes over the rest of the Cat 1-2-3 field, Hoffman said, and when they reached the turn at Alpine Junction, did some quick math in their heads to figure out the strategy over the final 47 miles.
"I'll admit, I was a little pessimistic about being able to get back in record time," Hoffman said, explaining they would need to average more than 23 miles per hour through the Snake River Canyon to break the old record of 9:08 held by Provo's Mark Zimbleman. "But we never missed a beat. We were strong in our pulls and just kept our heads down and went for it."
As the threesome headed into the outskirts of Jackson, Hoffman faded off the back to create a gap and test himself. He said he wanted to see what his legs had left in them without alerting the other two. So he sprinted back to his racing partners.
"I though I had one, maybe two, strong surges left in me," Hoffman said. "I really didn't have much faith in myself at that point. We were all exhausted."
As the race took them down the final few miles to Teton Village, Francis was content to let the two-time defending champion do the majority of the work. Hoffman and Lofgran motored along until there were two kilometers to go, when Lofgran surged to the front and set a strong pace. Hoffman followed with Francis as the third wheel.
When Lofgran could go no more, Hoffman pulled ahead with about 200 meters to go and narrowly beat Francis to the finish line.
"When I launched off Robert's wheel, I looked for David's shadow and didn't see it," Hoffman said. "With 200 meters to go, I thought it was safe enough to go and I had to do it."
That effort resulted in a victory, a course record and some tired legs.
"Not sure yet, but I'll probably have to go for four," Hoffman said.
In other divisions, Jill Damman of Jackson won the women's Cat 1-2-3 race at 10:23:28, while Salt Lake City 20-year-old Taylor Wiles hit the line second at 10:30:38, just ahead of Jamie Leake-Jenkins.
e-mail: jeborn@desnews.com