Thunderdome...

...or Velodrome, whatever. Last night was great, it's the first time I've been to a real Event with the capital E at the Velodrome. Tons of spectators, Tom Simpson at the mike, like five USCF officials (they still had problems). Very niiice.

I was nervous going in, not knowing what to expect. Originally I didn't think it would be particularly hard, but then I noticed all the Road Cat 2 guys doing the same as me: racing the 3's to get an upgrade. And there were some hardass Cat 2's too. I knew that at least one was a really good sprinter so I was determined to make it a hard race in the first: a 10K scratch race. The first five laps were fast enough, with some half hearted attacks. I went with Paulsen but he didn't seem game to go yet. Then things slowed up, and with six (or seven?) to go I pulled through hard, created a gap and went 80% to see the reaction. Well, they let me go for a while, and seemed uncertain, so I ramped it up all the way. After a lap or two it seemed I had half a lap gap, with only three to go. I thought I had it in the bag, showing my track naivete. Actually would have won it if the sprinter didn't ditch the field with 150 yrds to go and pasted me with 50 to go, luckily he had created his own gap and I got 2nd.

It was fun watching all the events I had never seen: the sprints, keirin, best of all: the Madison. What mayhem. Mary Maroon was in there mixing it up. The p1/2 Miss and Out was good. There was some official confusion and Larry Nolan dropped out in 3rd place, seemed pissed off. The other rider (Eng?) beat out BJM at the finish.

Shelly Olds schooled the women in the Points race.

I eeked out 4th in the Master's Scratch race, showing some dumb moves there (get to the front when a bunch of lapped riders get into your nice 5 man break, Hernandez and Peterson attacked while I was sleeping). I also screwed up the Cat 3 Miss and Out by staying down low and getting seriously boxed in.

More fun today! I'm very excited. Shot out to the teammates: Andrew was volunteering and I met Jen, who wears the TO colors down there.