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What Richard saw:
Category:
This evening the first district championships at the track were decided
- the Keirin and Points races. Pritpal rode the Keirin and I rode the B
omnium by way of a warm-up for the Points race.
Pritpal was drawn in an unlucky (for him) heat with Dave McCook,
Giovanni Rey and another fast rider who might have been Mark Rodamaker.
However, Gio made a mistake and opened the door for PP going into the
last lap and PP was through and onto McCook's wheel in a shot and
followed him to take second, qualifying for the final. Awesome! In the
final (8 riders), PP rode well to finish 5th - a great result.
Interspersed with the Keirin was the B omnium. I used it as a warm-up,
so had some fun. The first race was a 15 lap scratch which I used to get
the cylinders firing cleanly by attacking several times. The fresh legs
of the others were not letting me go, but I tried again close to the
finish, only to lead-out the sprint.
The second race was a miss-and-out. This was long as there were 20
riders!, and I felt the full length as I sat on the front for basically
the whole race. Robin VV did do two laps on the front early on, but I
was leading for something like 16 laps and was there for the final
sprint. Nate Shaw caught me resting and gapped me heading towards the
bell - I got second ahead of Richard DiGennaro. I was happy to be
complimented by Larry Nolan afterwards.
The third race was a tempo and I made sure I just sat in to turn the
legs and moved towards the front later in the race. If there had been
the opportunity, I would have contested the final sprint, but there was
no way through on the inside.
The last race of the evening was the Senior Points Race, run over the
regulation distance of 30km or 90 laps. This was significantly further
than I had previously raced at the track so it was with some trepidation
that I lined up on the rail.
Daniel Holloway went off the front from the gun. With a couple of laps
to go to the first bell, I pulled through at the front only to have the
bunch sit up behind me. I persevered and got second at the sprint and
then sat up to work with a couple of chasers. The move fell apart and we
were captured by the bunch.
We were moving pretty briskly but I was hanging in there OK. There were
a couple of moves which looked like I should follow them so I did. They
came to nothing and then Larry decided to sit on the front for a few
laps. This immediately put me into difficulty, as I was in need of
recovering after trying to get into the previous moves. I was there or
there abouts for a few laps, but the elastic snapped about 30 laps in.
In my defence, I wasn't the first out the back by several riders.
I carried on at my own pace and jumped back in a lap down when the bunch
caught me. By now the pace had settled down a little and I found it
fairly easy to hang in. There were often attacks and one which stuck
split the bunch and I was in the rear part. I decided to bridge across
and managed to do so. I experienced the weird effect of my vision going
all wobbly as I caught up with the front split.
My attack caused a reaction in the chase and they were not too far
behind me. Unfortunately, the front split sped up once I was on them and
I wasn't able to hang on and slipped back to other riders who were also
in difficulty. One was pissed off with me for my attack, probably
because he was dropped. Sorry, but that is racing.
Still, the three of us worked together until the end where we finished
about 1/3 lap down on the bunch with me -1 lap to the main field with 4
points. I was hoping to finish -0 laps down, but Larry did choose to
force the pace just after I put in a hard effort - that's racing.
I got off the bike, not completely exhausted (somewhat surprisingly),
but with rather rubbery legs. To stay with the fast guys I need to work
on the top-end speed, but I certainly had the necessary stamina, so a
not too shabby first attempt at the District Points Race.
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