Track - May 7th

Last Friday was the first night of racing at the velodrome for 2010. It's considered "preseason" racing, but quite a few people showed up (30-ish) in the Men's A field. I was just happy to be back out racing on the track. Road racing is a good kind of tough, but nowhere near as fun as track racing. Plus, I don't get bored in track races.

First up was the 15 lap scratch - I told Josh before the race that my main goal was to try to actually do something in at least 2 races each night. It doesn't have to work out, it doesn't have to be smart, but I'm not going to just hop on the train for 3 races and sit in. So about 5 laps into this race, a JD and Brian from Hagens put in a little attack, and I jumped on it immediately. It wasn't particularly fast though, and the field was right there, so I attacked again from the front. This time, I created a little separation, and I kept the pace high for a lap or two, when Brian attacked the small group of 5 that had split from the field. So I chased him down, started the sprint, and found out that I didn't really have anything left in the tank. Totally fine with that - I did a ton of work, and got my first top 5 in a 1/2 race. Pretty happy with how aggressive I'd been - it's the first track race where I really made things happen, and ended up with an okay result.

15 lap scratch - 4th

Next up was the tempo miss and out. It's like a normal miss-and-out race where the last rider across the line is eliminated, but the first two across the line also get points. Once 5 riders are left, there's one more lap for points (like all the others), and the rider out of the last 5 with the most points wins. Basically, it's a miss-and-out, but fast. Usually, I barely try on these, since I invariably find myself in a bad spot and get eliminated. With the higher speed of this race though, there were opportunities to move up, and I started to understand how to box people in so they'd get eliminated. Somehow, I managed to stay in until the final 5 with Josh. I was so happy just to get to that point that I hadn't considered that I hadn't been accumulating any points, so I ended up in 4th or 5th. Still, I made it to the end of a 30 rider field, which I'm thrilled about.

Tempo Miss and Out - 4th or 5th

Last up was the 30 lap scratch. Not much to tell here - I followed moves, stayed near-ish the front, and was generally tired from doing tons of work in the scratch and miss-and-out. Definitely not used to how tough track racing is yet. Ended up something like 5-7th-ish, which is totally fine, but I don't have the same jump some of the other guys have right now. That's a bummer - something to work on.

30 lap scratch - 7th-ish

I ended up feeling a lot more confident from racing. I've been reading and hearing about super strong guys (Benny, Russell, etc) for a couple years now, and I'm blown away that I'm actually competing against them (and doing okay!).