face="Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular">June 3, 2009, National Sports Center Velodrome Thursday Night Lights,
Blaine MN Category 3 Track
My last Thursday night of racing on the Velodrome in Minnesota during my two week trip.
It's been really great to stay with my parents just 10 minutes away and get four nights of racing in at the track.
The competition is great, the track is wonderful, and the people so welcoming.
The weather was beautiful again, with starting temperatures in the upper 70's and the wind gradually subsiding throughout the night.
Our first event was a 12 lap Tempo race (sprint every lap with 2 and 1 points awarded to the first two riders).
The race started out fast, with two riders getting off the front immediately and no one immediately reacting.
They racked up the first four laps and something was going to have to happen soon.
I did a strong pull at the front of the pack to try to pick up the speed.
Soon after, Dan Casey flew off the front and I was out of position to follow him.
He pulled away quickly and I did my best to reel him in, but made no progress.
He soon caught the escapees and I passed them soon after, but I was only getting second place points and wearing myself out riding solo.
But there were only a few laps left and not much chance of catching Dan who was riding very strongly.
At the end of the points tally, I had put myself into third place.
So I could have ridden smarter by watching Dan earlier and/or going with the initial attack to get those precious points before they slipped away.
Maximum speed 32.5 mph, average 29.1 mph.
A Miss and Out was our next event (pull each rider out of the race that's last across the line on every other lap, down to the final two).
This is one of my favorite events and since we had one two week's ago it was a welcome surprise to see it again so soon
(possibly the organizers knew this was my last week and the spectators enjoy watching me race this event).
With 12 of us starting, I immediately took the rear position.
From the opening eliminations, I was having an easy time of it.
Fairly early on, Gabe Masiulis let himself get stuck in the middle of the pack at the back and with 50 meters to go saw that he was in a difficult situation;
he slowed down suddenly to try to make an exit around the back to come over the top, but I slowed down also on his outside and half a length overlapping him and ahead.
After he got two lengths off the back I simply did a quick acceleration and he was doomed as I then heard a yell of anguish from one of the best sprinters in the field.
Thus, so far the race was going easily.
However, Daniel Casper soon made a move off the front and he was too strong a rider to let get away solo; so I bridged up to him and soon the two of us had a lead that would be impossible to close.
We were switching off at the front, but there was no need for me to take strong pulls.
The tricky part was watching behind us to see how close we were to the finish via the elimination of the rest of the riders.
The officials were ringing the same bell and in the same manner every other lap for the elimination sprints as they would for the final.
I thought that there was still one rider behind us when Casper went for the line in what seemed like a full sprint.
I kept with him and wasn't sure if I hadn't blown the race, but the effort still took a bit out of me.
Half a lap later we hear the announcer as he calls the other rider out and we both realize that we still have another lap to go when we next hit the line.
As we get the final bell Casper jumps hard and I follow and as we approach turn 3 I hope that I can come around, but the previous effort had drained me too much and I could only manage to finish a length off of the win.
Maximum speed 33.9 mph, average 28.1 mph.
A better tactic would have been to just sit on Casper and carefully watch the count of eliminations behind me, since I did not need to work to ensure that we stayed ahead of the other riders.
Our last event for the evening was a 50 lap scratch race.
Dan and Gabe were the riders to watch and they made sure that they lined up on the rail behind me before the start.
When the officials whistle blew to begin our neutral lap, I just stayed at the rail to try to force them ahead of me, but they also remained stationary.
I eventually got started, but our separation from the field meant that the officials gave us two neutral laps to gather ourselves together into one bunch.
So for the first several laps I had to watch more behind me than ahead, to make sure that neither one of them did an attack to catch me by surprise.
Eventually the pace picked up and the three of us pretty much motored away from the rest of the field, with Dan pushing the pace.
I was taking half lap turns and Dan would take full lap turns, with Gabe varying between a full or half lap pull.
After a while, the pace was wearing on me and I was wondering just how long I could keep with them.
We had lapped some dropped riders and then lapped the main field and kept going with the field tagging behind us.
As we got to about 20 laps to go, we caught up with some lapped riders again and Dan pushed the pace as we went around them and I couldn't keep up and lost contact.
I struggled alone for a while as all I needed to do was to not get caught by the field we had lapped and I would have at least third.
I worked with some other lapped riders, usually taking a full turn with them and at the end I was the only other rider to not get lapped by Dan and Gabe.
Surprisingly, Gabe did an attack before the final lap and Dan let him ride away for the win.
Maximum speed 32.9 mph, average 27.7 mph.
So Dan Casper won the Omnium for the night with two wins and a second, Gabe Masiulis second, and I only managed third. But I still had a blast and rode my best.
I'm not quite sure what, if any, races I'll have for the rest of the season.
I may get some sessions at the San Diego Track and if possible, the Masters National Track Championships in August which have yet to find a venue.
I'll sure miss being able to hit the velodrome every Thursday.
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