Reports by:

• Garry

Wednesday Night Track League 8-1
Raced in the "B' Group, no team mates (but Ziggy was there)

Got to the track in plenty of time for a good warm-up, part of which was spent at speed behind Peter Bohls motorbike.

The nights format was arranged around a Keiren tournament. The three ability groups, A.b and C each did 3 heats of races, with 6 racers in each heat.

The Keiren is a fun race. A motorbike paces the riders for 4 1/2 laps, at which point it drops off the track. The remaining 1 1/2 laps are then full speed to the line. At the start, the inside rider has to take position #1 behind the pace bike, unless another rider wants that position. tactically, it's not so good to draw #1. The bike and 6 riders start at 15 mph and by the time the pacer drops off, we are at 28 mph.

in my first race I drew second position and maintained that all the way to the line, following in a BPG rider. Second heat I came 4th and the final heat I was 6th, not so good.

due to the number of riders, the keiren took a long time (27 heats in total), so the remaining program was shortened.

We did a 8 lap scratch race, and I finished at the back of the pack and then we did a a miss and out, and I was eliminated early on.

Racing finished at 9:40 under the lights.

See you next week

I finished 4th out of 7 in my qualifier so advanced to the minor final, where I came in 5th out of 8. I tried to sneak up from my 4th position in the line to third and spent the whole 5 laps on the third riders shoulder, but come the final acceleration I was found lacking.

We then did a 8 lap scratch race, I finished in the pack. This was followed by a "devil" and I was eliminated about half way through (big field of 18 riders). The last race was a 20 lap points race with sprints every 5th lap. I tried to get points in the second sprint but missed by one position. I finished off strong with another fifth place sprint, again just out of the points.

Thanks for reading

Garry

PS, gonna try the Thursday night this week.