by Bill Shaw

Houstonian Gabriel Rodriguez, 25, set a sizzling 5:09 mile pace in the hot and humid 29th Annual Firecracker 4 on Independence Day and broke the contest record by 57 seconds with a 20:37 finish in the four-miler on a USA Track & Field certified course.

Two Bay City High recent graduates finished second and third in the open men's competition in 22:09 and 23:20. Second-place finisher Cornelio Castenor trailed Rodriguez by 1:32.

Winning her fourth Firecracker 4, Susan Walters, 38, of Wallis, Tex., finished ninth overall and won the open women's competition in 25:46, a 6:27 race pace, but fell 1:23 short of the contest record. Trailing Walters by 1:51, Lisa Belson, 35, of Houston finished 16th overall and second in the open female competition in 27:37. Serai Abraham, 52, finished 27th overall and third in the open women's competition in 29:57.

Lake Jackson local Kevin Regis, 44, finished seventh overall and first in the male masters competition in 24:57, a 6:14 pace; Regis was 2:09 off the record masters pace set in 2000. Victor Aguirre, 51, of Katy and A. C. Moldenhauer, 40, of Lake Jackson finished, respectively, 10th and 11th overall in 25:47 and 26:20, to claim second and third in the male masters competition.

Finishing 38th overall in 31:50, Sandra Cowart, 41, of Bay City placed first in the female masters competition in 31:50, a 7:58 pace. Cowart fell 3:05 short of the 28:45 female masters record mark set by Kathy King of Lake Jackson in 1999. Shirley Archer, 57, of Houston and Janneke Maas, 46, of Lake Jackson, finished, respectively, in 32:06 and 34:32, to place second and third in the female masters competition.

The Brazosport Area Road Runners Association (BARRA) sponsors the annual four-miler. For more information on BARRA, see www.brazosport.edu/~BARRA or e-mail runwriter@juno.com.