Does the "C" stand for Chippolini?

Mario Chiarani chasin down another Cat 4 victim
The weekend's biggest story, was perhaps about the kid with the BIGGEST head racing this weekend. I've spoken of him before and have his blog link here. 15 year old Mario Chiarani spent the weekend throttling the competition in FOUR races. He crushed the hopes of Danny Hiller (15-16 Juniors) Saturday at Boulder Res with a dominating performance then started at the BACK of the Cat4 race...in 90th place and worked his way up to 37th overall, against a bunch of whimpering grown MEN. Each of them could smell the burnt rubber of Mario's back tire as he warped by them....He might as well been in the front seat of the "Enterprise" with Spock driving.

Sunday provided a new Junior Class challenge...as a bobble (crash) at the start of the junior race may have cost "Grasshopper" a victory. Mario is in his first year of racing cross, which is pretty damn impressive, and is learning the art of patience at the start of a race...well, this day he learned that on lap one, it is critical to let the other riders make the mistakes early and take advantage of them...rather than being the victim of the HUGE adrenilin rush that it is so easy to get caught up in at the beginning of a race, especially when you have won the day before...An early crash cost him 5-10 seconds...he got second by about 5 when it was over...a VERY GOOD learning experience as I see it. He did get kinda hosed on the lap count, but I'm not gonna let him use that as a "lame" excuse...

This kid is on target to do something spectacular in the junior classifications. Watch him. He is being courted by sevral teams already, including the Mafia guys...