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Track Racing Report

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 12:19 am
by 4827north
Hi Everyone,

Friday night was the first of three "Friday Night under the lights" cash racing at the Velodrome. Prior to that was the regular Friday evening bunch racing. Lister was dragged there by a few juniors - great to see Evan and Liam out there racing. Brenna and Jim were out too, and yours truly. Seems everyone else from Tripleshot decided to stay home and watch a movie or something.

The club racing started off with a scratch race with A's and B's racing together. Emil Marcetta from Glotman-Simpson took the win overall and for the A's. There were no Tripleshotters racing in A's but in B's Evan took an adjusted 2nd place, while Liam took the win in the B's. Nice racing LIam! I was sucking it up at the back, with lead-weighted legs not yet wrmed up after the morning's TTT practice, and managed only a suckish 7th.

The Cs had Brenna, James, and David Brown racing. A small field of 6 racers half of which were Tripleshot jerseys. In the scratch the best showing had Brenna taking 2nd place. In the Tempo race (a points race where each lap the first across gets one point) we saw James Pauly with the best result of 2nd place, followed by Brenna 3rd and David 5th. The Cs did a third club race - an Elimination aka Miss-N-Out. This race saw an almost identical result for the team, with Brenna this time taking 2nd, James 3rd and David 5th.

Next up for club racing involving a Tripleshot jersey was the Miss-N-Out race (Elimination). Very simple. Last person across the line on the sprint laps drops out. The last 6 sprint it out for placing. Again, As and Bs raced together, making the sprinting laps rather, shall I say, freaking fast! Again, No Roland, Gavin or Adam racing in A's so only B's to report on. Evan took 9th, Liam 8th, and I managed to hold on for 8th overall, adjusted to 3rd place in the B's. Track position is key in this event. Go down track, and you risk getting boxed in. Go up track and you have to work harder, or hope to slide in behind a fast sprinter. Makes an exciting race. It's sometimes hard to know if you're last person or not, and hard to hear the officials calling you off.

FRIDAY UNDER THE LIGHTS

On come the lights.. track luminescent under a darkening summer sky. A nice breeze blowing across track. Cool if you're just sitting about but just right for racing.

8:30pm arrives and it is now time for the cash to flow out. $25 to race for cash, with money going five deep. I think the first race we did was an A/B scratch or points race. I can't recall. By this time I was the only Tripleshot jersey on track with the junior's and James Pauly calling it a night. I had dead legs for the first event, nothing. The second event for the B's was a Win-N-Out. This is where the first across the line drops out. After the neutral lap, I was feeling pretty dead, so I decided to sprint and try to take the first lap so I could rest my dead legs. In my anxiousness I started my sprint a lap too early.. the bell hadn't gone yet, and so I ramped the pace to something stupid like 52 km/h only to take the sprint as I hear the bell ring in my ear... damn what was I thinking? So, needless to say, that left me hanging on the track for the rest of the race doing tempo circles. No cost recovery there, no rest.

Next race up for Bs is one of my faves... the Keirin. Motorbike on the track. Pace us up 40+ km/h for six laps then pull off and we sprint for 2 laps. 8 racers on track. Track position is key. I drew 7th position for the start. We got rolling, I had legs, but no track position. I stayed down track too long, was boxed in until the racers up track started their sprints in earnest. That leaves me starting my full kick too late. I managed to overtake the wheel ahead to take 4th spot on the line, and collect back $16 of the $25 I spent racing.

That was it for me, the A's saw Emile de Rosnay cleaning up with Chris Anstey taking some well deserved cash as well.

All in all, a very fun night of racing. I encourage everyone to come out, racing or watching, for Friday Nights under the lights through end of August.

--Brad