Tulsa Wheelmen Weekly Criterium

A Not-So-Brief History of Tulsa’s Weekly Summer Practice Crits

By Malcolm McCollam

This is all from memory, so the dates are mostly approximations.

Metlife Era

My involvement as a participant began in 1985. I’m not certain how long prior to that the weekly practice crits had been happening, but it had been a while. Greg Saunders may know more about the earlier years. At that time, they took place on Wednesdays at the Metlife building just off the Broken Arrow Expressway at around 129th East Ave. After work hours, we were allowed to use the private road that went around their building. It was basically a D-shaped course with two 90 degree turns.

The weekly races were pretty much run by two people: Sue Ames and Tippy Hawkins. They were always there to sign you up and take your entry fee. The next step was that you had to report to Steve Ducummon, a mechanic who worked at Cycles International, a shop at 41st & Sheridan. Bill Christoper, owned and operated the shop and had an exclusive import license for the Midwest with Campagnolo, carried Gianni Motta bicycles, and sponsored the local Gianni Motta racing team. Steve would check to see that your tubular tires were sufficiently glued. If not, you were not allowed to race.

The format was A-B-C. The first time you signed up you were issued a piece of cloth about 8” x 8” upon which had been painted a number and four safety pins. The A, B and C numbers were all different color. That was your number for the year and you were expected to return it after the last race in September. If you were new, you had to start in the C race. There was a rule you had to win your category three times before you could move up to the next category. Sue and Tippy kept track of this.

The Cs went first as a separate race. After the C race finished the B and A racers were staged. They started the B riders, waited about one minute and started the A riders. Inevitably, the A pack caught the B pack during the latter stages of the race (which was usually pure chaos).

Another volunteer who began to show up and help Sue and Tippy was a gentleman from Owasso who had a teenage son interested in racing. The dad was Jack McNeal. The son was Michael McNeal.

The Admiral Flea Market Era

Sometime in the late 1980s Metlife informed us we were no longer going to be allowed to use their property for our practice races. About this same time a group of city planners had rolled out a proposal for a paved network of multi-use recreational trails that would encircle the City. It was going to be a public-private partnership and they were calling it a “Green Belt.” This is what eventually became the current trail system, although with a different funding base, largely championed by INCOG.

At the time, I was President of the Tulsa Wheelmen. We organized an annual fall century called the “Blood and Guts 100”. I have no idea why it was called that. When the announcement about the Green Belt was published, I suggested the club support it and make the B&G 100 a fundraiser for the project. Everyone agreed and we raised about four or five hundred dollars, which we donated to the cause.

In this timeline, there are some overlapping events which had a significant impact. One of the important ones was the 1984 Memorial Day flash floods. This event was massive. Lives were lost. Hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage resulted. And it accelerated the process of planning for floodwater management. As a part of that process, the City of Tulsa purchased numerous properties around the City which had flooded. Two of those properties were mobile home parks in east Tulsa near Admiral and Mingo: the one we currently use and one behind the Admiral Flea Market.

About the same time we were told we were losing the Metlife venue, I became aware of the City mobile home park purchases and realized the land behind the Admiral Flea Market was gated off from the public and still had all the roads. I approached the City, reminded them that we had been an early supporter of the recreational trails plan and requested the ability to use those blocked off roads once a week for our practice crits. They agreed to let us use them. There was no fee. They just gave me a key to the padlock and we arranged to have a porta john out there in the summer.

We raced behind the Admiral Flea Market for many years. Sue and Tippy had been running the weekly crits for so many years, I think they took this as an opportunity to bow out. Jack McNeal had been getting more active in the club as Michael got older and volunteered to take their place. Thus Jack’s reign as one of Oklahoma’s most selfless and dedicated volunteers and someone who probably had a more profound impact on cycling in this state than anyone I can think of. On a personal note, if the club decides to move forward with a full summer crit series next year, I think it might be super cool to call it the “Jack McNeal Summer Crit Series,” or something similar.

At some point, the City notified us they were transferring title to the land behind the Admiral Flea Market to Boeing as part of a lawsuit settlement. I don’t remember the particulars, but it had something to do with the City wrongly taking some land that belonged to Boeing and they negotiated a land swap as part of the settlement. Thus ended the Admiral Flea Market era.

City of Tulsa Safety Training Center Era

With the Admiral Flea Market mobile home park land gone, it didn’t take long to figure out there was another similar layout a few blocks to the East. When the City bought that mobile home park out after the flooding, it had decided to use the roads to train cops, bus drivers and others, and they named it the City of Tulsa Safety Training Center. Initially there was no building out there. That came later.

Once again, I approached my contacts at the City and reminded them of our arrangement and that we had lost use of the Admiral Flea Market land through no fault of our own. I requested we be allowed to continue with the current arrangement at the City of Tulsa Safety Training Center and they agreed.

Jack McNeal continued to run the series and many of us can still hear him calling out “I need pickers” with three laps to go in a race. At some point he didn’t need to do that any longer. We all just knew to drop out of our warm up and report to Jack at the Start/Finish with three laps to go. He would point to you and say: “Malcolm, you take one and two, Tim, you take three and four, Jeremy, you take five and six,” and so on. Once the race was over, Jack would call out the places and we would report the number to him. He wrote them down and called (yes, on a phone) the Tulsa World when he got home. The top three in each category was always in the tiny print results in the paper on Thursday morning.

I still have a decades old clipping of a day when, in the A race, for some reason, still unknown to me this day, I was able to get away and stay away and following the listing of my name in first place were two absolute stud sprinters, Greg Saunders and Bryan Duvall. In my Last Will & Testament, I’m requesting I be buried with that clipping.

As everyone undoubtedly knows, the road surfaces (which were never good to begin with) eventually became so bad it was no longer feasible to use the facility. In my view, Tulsa’s racing community has suffered with the absence of these practice races and I am so grateful Kendall and others have resurrected this series.

When I think of the skills development opportunities we had available over 30+ years, comprising hundreds of races, thousands of laps and potentially tens of thousands of corners, it makes me realize how fortunate we were.

You guys pick it up from here!

Malcolm McCollam

Ahead: Tuesday Night Crits.
Stay Tuned.

We're on it! Looking to restart the Tuesday Night Crits Again! (Actual day TBA) City of Tulsa says look for mid-June to start.

I would like to see all the local race teams get behind this effort. So whoever is nominated to head this up for your team, text me (Kendall Johnson) at 918-269-8561 so we can make a plan.

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