Dan was introduced to racing in college because his fraternity's, Sig Ep's, goal was to win the school bike race. Dan broke his arm four days before the 1978 race so that was not a good year but victory was achieved in 1979. The Sig Ep coach was brother Ed Burke, PhD, who later went on to coach Lance Armstrong. Tom Doughty, brother, was Dan's mentor who became a nationally competitive cyclist and was an alternate on the Olympic Cycling Road team. Ed and Tom attended graduate school in part because they had not won the Ball State race yet: they did win the race in '74 and '75 so the higher education was well worth it. Not a bad introduction to the sport. By Dan's senior year he was a USCF Cat 2 winning races with a breakaway style.
After taking twenty years off for marriage, IT career and raising two boys, Jon and Nick, Dan started his second cycling career in his mid 40s and 20lbs overweight. The college speed was gone and his results were very average. Missing his past racing success, Dan read cycling books by Ed Burke (yes, the same Ed from Ball State), Chris Carmichael and Joe Freil and Weightlifting for Cycling. Dan learned the old school ways were outdated, and there were new training techniques like periodization and diet concerns. Dan made it back to being a competitive cyclist and winning some age group and some non-age group races,
Racing Resume.