Usually, the Mississippi Grand Prix is a three day, four stage event but this year the fist stage had to be canceled. The criterium race was scheduled for Friday evening on a tight down-town course but continuous rain made the course too dangerous and the promoter and team captains decided to cancel the race.

Saturday started with an 80 mile (3 laps) and 60 mile (2 laps) road race for the elite riders and the women, respectively. The girls had a good day, with Shannon finishing second and Jenny coming in 8th. The men’s team also had a solid race. For the first half of the race the team set the pace and held everything under control. Halfway through the second of the three laps a three-men group went off the front with Peter representing Metro Volkswagen. This took the pressure from the rest of the team and forced other teams to expend valuable energy. The lead group managed to stay away and Peter came in third. In the sprint out of the main pack Christian finished 5th, 8th overall. With two guys in the Top 10, Metro Volkswagen was one of the top teams in the race and held the 3rd position in the team ranking.

Later the same day both the men and the women had to complete a 4 mile time trail. Shannon recovered best from the morning’s effort and rode away with a solid victory, over 20 seconds faster than the second place girl. With that result she also took over the lead in the overalls. Jenny finished 5th. In the men’s, Christian came in 5th and Nathan 9th; Peter still felt his effort from earlier in the day and lost some time, finishing 38th. After the time trail, Christian moved up to 6th overall, while Nathan also moved into the Top 10, sitting in 9th overall. Even though the team lost some seconds in the team-overall ranking, they still held on to their 3rd place.

The event ended on Sunday with a Circuit Race. The women raced for 60 minutes and the main goal for the day was to secure Shannon’s overall lead. Nevertheless, she went on to win the first prime of the day and after that was content to sit in for the rest of the race. She finally came in 2nd of the day, easily holding on to her overall lead. Jenny came in 9th, both in the circuit race and in the overalls. In the men’s race the goal was to gain some time on the two teams that were leading the team-overalls. This meant that Leo and Nathan were supposed to go on the attack to establish a break about halfway thought the race.

Both rode aggressive and managed to initiate several break-aways but none stayed off; at the same time the rest of the team made sure that no dangerous break would go off the front. In the end it came down to a field sprint. Joe and Leo helped Nathan to move into position in the last lap and with 200 meters to go Nathan unleashed his sprint to take the year’s first victory for the men on the Metro Volkswagen Cycling Team. Christian finished the day in 6th while Leo came in 8th. Due to the time bonus, the victory moved Nathan into the 6th position overall, while Christian dropped to 7th. In the team ranking the Metro Volkswagen Cycling Team finished the Mississippi Grand Prix in 3rd position.

Overall it was a successful weekend for the whole team with an overall win, two individual stage wins, 3 Top 3 finishes and multiple Top 10 results.