Here's Lara and I huddled under two blankets. By Ed White.It's easy to not be enthusiastic to race when you're nose feels like an ice cube and that's exactly how I felt for our first race, a Danish Win and Out. Plus there were only 3 of us, which is less than inspiring. I thought I would come around Kristen Meshberg (Team BH USA) with about 200 to go to take the win but I failed and ended up leading Francine Haas (Alberto's) out and got 3rd. Blegh. An uninspiring start.
Next up were the Points Races, the various mens' fields did 50 lap, 30 lap and 25 lap races which meant A LOT of sitting around for me. I was so cozy under my blanket I didn't even warmup for our race, which was a 24 lapper with sprints every 3. Since this was the marquee event of the night we were combined with the Women's 4s for a total field size of 8 to 10, not really sure. Our race was pretty active with a few primes thrown in. Tamara Fraser (xXx) and Christina Peck took a flyer for a prime and stayed off to go 1 and 2 on a points lap. It was great to see Tamara being aggressive! I remember Kristen jumping around turn 3, a lap and a half before points, which caused me to mutter (yell) something special. I put my head down and knew I had to catch her. With about 3/4 of a lap to go I closed in on her and thought about just sitting on her wheel, but I had a lot of speed so I passed her, hoping I wasn't leading Francine out again. I put my head down and went all out and won the lap. In the end, I think I got 5 of the 8 sprints and got points in the other 3 sprints, which was enough for the win. I felt really good accelerating and jumping on the points laps, a few times I even got a sizeable gap. This is good for me since this is what I'm training for this year.
During the Points Race. Note I no longer sprint with locked elbows! By Ed White.Our final race was an Unknown Distance, just the 3 of us again in the 1/2/3 field. It was getting late, everyone was freezing so we urged Carl to make it short. We didn't have a neutral lap, he blew the whistle from the rail and I think he would have rung the bell as well except someone decided we should have a prime. We got going, Kristen had a decent gap, I caught her wheel and didn't contest the prime. Carl rung the bell when we passed. I sat on Kristen's wheel until about 200 to go, accelerated out of the saddle and won the race. It was short and fast, a perfect ending to a cold night at the track. As always it was great to race with Francine and Kristen and I was happy to see a strong Women's 4 field. There's a lot of talent out there!
