Joe Elbert's American Shots

As the late-evening summer sun hangs over snarled traffic on the Capital Beltway and westbound 66 is crawling along, the whoosh of flying wheels is relentless on a tight circuit in Greenbelt.

Whoosh -- that's the sound that a pack of bicycles makes as it zooms by during the Wednesday night races that take place weekly in a season that lasts from May through August. Cycling would be classified as an extreme sport if it were as noisy as NASCAR.

Top cyclists think nothing of riding 10,000 miles a year for training. Road-racing bikes cost as much as motocross motorcycles. Motorcycle racers wear the latest in body armor, and cyclists wear the latest in polyester. When bike racers crash, and even the best do from time to time, the air is filled with the crack of carbon-fiber bike frames and moans of riders who have lost a layer of skin, or worse.

There's more to it than pedaling as fast as you can. Cycle racing involves intense team tactics, careful calculations (is that guy who just sprinted off the front of the pack a real threat or will he fizzle out like a bottle rocket?), superb handling skills as scores of riders thunder so close that if one falters they will go down like so many dominoes, and raw courage when a race explodes into a mass sprint to the finish line.

Here are two well-kept secrets: Greenbelt has a National Park and one of the oldest cycle race series in the country. The Greenbelt National Park Training Race Series takes place Wednesday nights for 16 consecutive weeks. The course is 1.4 miles on the perimeter road of the park. This is the 29th year of the series, making it one of the oldest training series races in the nation, and it's a hot destination for those who want to rack up enough races to advance to the sport's higher levels.

Larry Black, College Park Bicycles owner, started the series in 1980. Dedicated volunteers and bike clubs have made it a major draw for the region. Stefan Yencha, a 39-year-old from Sykesville, Md., is chief referee and feels a kinship to the race. He has been officiating and helping out for the past 10 years.

"We need to have a pretty good crew of individuals to do registration, have all the results up on the Web site, referees, road guards to close down the loop and two park rangers. It takes about 12 to make the races work each week."

Jeff Travis, 52, of Greenbelt has been helping out with the race since 1999.

"It's like planning and throwing a party with 100 people showing up every week," he said.

To see more of the race series, visit http://washingtonpost.com/AmericanShots.