News from the Track

Josh and I have actually been racing all summer despite the lack of anything in written form. I graduated from medical school in the middle of June, moved across town and started my Pathology residency. And we went to Italy (that's us in Venice, nice and happy before we got lost). We have been racing Thursday nights at Northbrook, along with the occasional Saturday jaunt down to Indianapolis (Major Taylor Velodrome) and once we went up to Blaine in Minneapolis. Josh did quite well this season, especially in races he doesn't particularly like, taking 4th in the Indiana State Points Race, and in races he really likes, 2nd in the Sprints at the same event. Also lest we not forget he finished 3rd at Masters Nationals (Hellyer, San Jose) in the Team Sprint with local Kevin Perez (Turin) and someone else from another velodrome (sorry, I can't remember his name). Right now we're both getting geared up for Elite Nationals, October 1st-5th at ADT in LA.


First off, I have to throw a huge amount of thanks to the guys, especially Eric, at the Get a Grip Irving shop for helping make my bike the most amazing piece of two wheeled machinery that has ever graced the planet. (picture above by Gavin, http://www.flickr.com/photos/neverdrownout)

Northbrook 8/21/08, Elaine Nekritz 35 Lap Scratch Race
(Women's State Scratch Race)
The Elaine Nekritz race is arguably one of the best women's track races in the Midwest, with a purse of $1000. It tends to draw a lot of regional names, this year we were joined by Kendi Thomas from Major Taylor, Monique Hanley from Australia, and Elena Dorr who recently moved here from Blaine, oops I mean Minneapolis (I tend to refer to the name of the track in a city rather than the city itself). Not to mention the strong locals who were there, Kristen Meshburg, Jessi Prinner (who just returned from Junior Track and Road Nats), Francine Haas, Julie DeWerd, Michelle Dykstra, Imelda March, Wendy Gaddey, Sarah Huang and Marcie Weiss, who've been hiding out all summer in Wisconsin. I knew Kendi was coming and I figured Monique would be there since she was in town for a few road races. These two alone would make it a hard night, spice it up with some Meshburg-Prinner-Haas and the night went from hard to potentially agonizing.

We started the night off with a 15 lap Point-a-Lap race, which is everyone's favorite race. Yeah right. I think most of us viewed it a warm-up, which certainly does not equate to it being slow, rather it means no one really killed themselves for points. I sat in, tried to contest a few points, didn't win any and went into the final lap with 0 points, meaning I was tied with 5 or 6 other people for 5th-whatever place. I ended up winning the last lap, in a very gratifying way. I was sitting 2nd to last with about 150m to go and thought that I better finish with at least 1 point. I blazed around half the field in turn 3 and passed Monique in turn 4. It felt really good to lay down the speed and made me a little more confident going into the Scratch Race that I had something in the engine that night.

(photo by Gavin)

Onto the marquee event of the night. The Elaine Nekritz 35 Lap Championship Scratch Race. I've learned in my ever so short time as a track racer that I would rather do a 100 lap Scratch Race than a 30 lap Points Race. I guess some people find this strange and really enjoy the excitement of points races, and to them I say, have you ever done a Women's points race at Northbrook? I didn't think so. We can, I hate to say it, have very tedious points races that are painful in all the wrong ways. Well, I'm digressing. My point was that I actually enjoy scratch races, so I was excited for this race. And extremely nervous. We all lined up at the rail, the weather looked ominous, it had rained on and off all day and it appeared that the clouds were rolling back in. Carl and Dave came around telling us what would happen in case of rain. Ugh. Rain.

The race started, nothing too exciting for the first half. A few break attempts but nothing stuck. Then with about 12 laps to go, Jessi Prinner jumped off the front. Jessi is a really strong rider (and a junior!), I did a quick calculation in my head and figured we could work together and potentially stay off. So I bridged up to her and was surprised to see that no one bridged up with me. That was actually a good thing, as I sometimes have the bad habit of dragging the field with me. Jessi slowed down when she saw me coming and when I joined her, we kicked it into high gear. We alternated half lap pulls and consistently had a 1/3 lap lead on the pack.

Jessi and I in our break (photo by Gavin)

I kept looking back when we were coming out of the turn 2 and 4 each lap, fearing I would see the pack gaining on us. But amazingly they never did, probably due to some disorganization on their part (hey, that's fine with me). All this time my insides were hurting, my legs were burning but I was determined to keep us off the front. I tried to not look at the lap counter but ended up doing it every lap, telling myself "you can do this for 8 more laps, 7, 6, etc.". With 2 to go I was pretty sure we had it in the bag, and with one to go I knew it but we were still only 1/3 of a lap ahead of the pack so that meant no cat and mouse games with Jessi on the final lap. It just so happened that Jessi's pulls were from turn 3-turn 1, so she pulled off with one to go, which put me in a less then ideal spot pulling through turn 2 but I figured maybe I could outsprint her in the end. Coming into turn 3/4 Jessi came around me and I tried to sprint but I had nothing left. In the end I finished 2nd at arguably the biggest Women's race at Northbrook. Not too bad. I raced aggressively and actually made people react to what I did, instead of reacting to what others did. All in all it was a great night and those last 12 laps were probably the hardest I've worked all season. (And it never rained!)

There was a Points Race after the Scratch and honestly I don't remember much of it since I was still pretty gassed. I can't even remember what place I finished. Ha!

More reports to come.

Josh from that night, not sure what race(s), just some awesome shots by Tim Strege (Half Acre):

Major Taylor Velodrome's Hot Summer Nights

*Special thanks to Ed White for this fantastic photo-Val

The Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis, IN held weekly racing for both cat 1-2-3 and women racers this summer in an alternating schedule between Friday nights and Saturday afternoons. Val and I made the surprisingly easy drive down for several of the Saturdays this summer. For any one who has never been there, despite not being one of the faster tracks in the country, Major Taylor Velodrome has one of the nicest facilities and some of the friendliest people, we highly recommend visiting it if you’re ever in the area. For experienced track racers they have some great racing and the banking is a comfortable medium with very smooth transitions making it a great track for beginners as well.

On the first outing (6/28/2008), their rather huge parking lot was nearly full of people getting ready for the NITE ride. By the time racing started, the stands were packed and people lined the rail of nearly half of the track. Val took full advantage of being the unknown out of town racer and cleaned house winning two of the three races and placing second in the other, which gave her a clear win for the omnium. I had a bad day on the bike but made some new friends and enjoyed the great crowd and atmosphere that usually only accompanies larger events.

For the second visit (7/26/2008) Val found herself up against a field that contained three women from the same team including Brooke Crum, who is good competition on her own with out teammates blocking and boxing for her. The rest of the field were very content to just watch and draft which forced Val to chase down countless attacks from Brooke and her teammates. Despite being up against some very well executed team tactics, Val ended up with second place for all three events. I didn’t fare quite as well, placing a depressing fifth place in the Keirin (my all time favorite race) but later turned the night around getting third in both the Miss-N-Out and Points Race. Keeping with the often fun Major Taylor atmosphere, after the races they inflated a huge screen in the infield and people from the crowd and a number of racers and officials hung out in the stands and some even laid on the track to watch the classic local favorite Breaking Away. Val and I opted to venture out with our prize money in hand to gorge ourselves on burritos from not one, but two burrito joints that the locals suggested (thank you Tom). They were decent, but thus far nowhere compares to what we have accustomed ourselves to in Southern California and Arizona (can you say Filibertos).

The final visit for the season was for the Major Taylor Velodrome Championship on August first and second, which was also the Indiana state track championship and an elite Nationals qualifier race. First up was the Keirin, in the final half lap of the women’s final Val launched off the front with perfect timing to win by a nice margin against the likes of Kendi Thomas and Brooke Crum. This marked a very significant turning point for Val, as previously she had significant reservations about racing Keirins and sprint events in general, but now she is starting to like them. Next up was the men’s Keirin where I once again choked in the final, finishing a frustrating fifth place, again. Val got second in the women’s Scratch Race and then third in the Points Race where Kendi Thomas rode off the front early in the race and eventually lapped the field. The men’s Points Race was action packed from start to finish. During the neutral lap one of the local fast guys, who will remain anonymous for this comment, said “I’m going to punch anyone who jumps on the whistle”. Sure enough, less then one second after the whistle a very strong attack was launched, which resulted in momentary laughs that quickly changed to gasps as the pace ramped up. The race continued with a steady stream of strong attacks and counters, non of which got more then half a lap ahead before eventually being reeled in usually only lasting just long enough for the attackers to pick up points from one sprint. It was a hard fought race, but I ended up falling short of third place by only the difference that two inches in the third points sprint made.

Day two held the Match Sprint which, despite being significantly rusty at, are my second favorite event. I qualified second fastest in the flying 200, and advanced through the rounds to the final but then got absolutely slaughtered by Tom Hanley. Tom finished nearly four tenths of a second faster in the flying 200, which is huge, and he won several of the other events so it wasn’t much of a surprise. This was Val’s second time doing Match Sprint. She qualified well, but unfortunately was matched up in the semifinal round against a local collegiate rider who goes to school literally across the street from the track and has loads of match sprint experience and a great jump.

Another fun weekend in Indianapolis came to a close with both of us qualified for Nationals in both sprint and endurance events. Thank you to everyone at Major Taylor for putting on fun races and being so friendly and inviting to out of town visitors.