Carlsbad Triathlon : Tinley, Right at Home on Course, Beats Field by Nearly Five Minutes

It may not have been the Iron Man triathlon or the triathlon World Championships, the two races that Scott Tinley considers to be the most important. But Sunday’s Carlsbad Triathlon provided Tinley with a chance to show his dominance of the sport.

Tinley has been one of the world’s top triathletes for the last nine years. He won the Iron Man in 1982 and 1985 and has finished second four times since the race began in 1978.

But his performance Sunday seemed to reinforce his prominence.

Tinley won the race--a 1-mile swim, 16-mile bike ride and 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) run--in 1 hour 33 minutes 46 seconds. He said it was hard to judge the time because the course was new and he had never competed on it before.

But when his finish is compared with the rest of the field, his domination of the race becomes apparent. A fellow professional triathlete, Dave Wilcoxon of Long Beach, finished second with 1629516905Encinitas was third in 1:40:08.

Laurie Samuelson of Carlsbad won the women’s race in 1:48:38, followed by Laura Hove of Dana Point (1:54:18) and Terri Incropera of San Diego (1:54:25).

Wilcoxon came out of the water at the same time as Tinley, in a group of five who were the first to reach the beach. But that was the last Wilcoxon saw of Tinley.

“He jetted out (of the bicycle parking lot) like crazy,” Wilcoxon said. “The guy is amazing. All of us are just scratching to get up to his level, and it seems impossible.

“I thought I was going fast, even faster than last year (Wilcoxon finished second in 1986 on a different course). But then you look at Scott Tinley, and this guy is going 5, 10 times faster than I am. I was happy I was that close.”

“I swam as hard as I could,” Tinley said. “The water was perfect . . . about 65, 66 degrees.”

The only problem came when Tinley was forced to stop for “about a minute” near the 10-mile point of the cycling portion to fix a broken spoke on his new, experimental front wheel. At that point, Tinley had a lead of two to three minutes, so he said he was not too concerned.

“Fortunately, it didn’t hurt me that badly,” he said. “But it could have cost me the race in some races. It was nice not to have to beat my brains out like in other races.

“I thought it would have been a shame to have a two- or three-minute lead and have to drop out because of a broken wheel. So I twisted the broken (spoke) around the others.”

Usually, Tinley is paid to compete. But Sunday, he paid the $35 entry fee just like the rest of the approximately 750 competitors. He didn’t even win prize money, since none was given in the race. He said he had several reasons for doing that.

“I want to help the San Diego triathlon community as much as possible, because they’ve helped me out a lot,” he said. “It’s great to compete on the roads I (cycle) 400 miles a week on. It’s nice to just roll out of bed and roll down the hill instead of getting on a plane and competing with jet lag.”

Usually that is the case for Tinley. Many of the approximately 25 triathlons he competes in each year are overseas. Last weekend, for example, he won the European Championships in Sader, Sweden. Next weekend, he’ll be in Japan for the Japan Iron Man.

Even the two that mean the most to Tinley are a long plane ride away. The World Championships will be held Oct. 25 in Nice, France. The Iron Man triathlon in Hawaii will be held just two weeks before on Oct. 10.

“The traveling begins to wear on you after a while,” said Tinley, 30. “But I figure I’ve got five good years left.”