9/3/98

Well, I did the last track race at Marymoor Velodrome for the year, which was Novelty Night, where the races are a bit weirder than normal. For us Cat 4's, there were three races: Unknown distance to 4X1 Win-And-Out, Point-A-Lap/Miss-And-Out, and the 22-Lap Lotto Race. The first race is one of unknown distance; the riders don't know how long the race will be, and once the bell is rung, it's a sprint to decide who is first, and the next lap decides 2nd place, and so on. The second one is where the winner of each lap get's one point, and the last one accross the line get's pulled out of the race - the race goes on until there's no one left, and the winner is the one with the most points. The last race is 22 laps long, but it's a point race, where there are certain laps that are worth points for the first 4 placings. It's just that no one knows which those laps are until they ring the bell telling the riders that the next lap is worth the points.

There were other races for the other categories (Cat 1/2/3, Women and Master's), but I don't remember what format they had. It was all weird, though
 
 
  

From the team were (besides myself): Erik, Laura, and Leo Moen, Don Wells, Blake, Richard, and Rad (although he isn't joining until next year). Michael Petty and Michael Gordon came to watch. Lan was there too.

I was pretty out of shape still, so I tried to at least entertain myself. For the first race, I took a flier (a quick-lead) for a while, after which the bell was rung. That pretty much meant that I was out of the picture by the time the race mattered. For the 2nd race, I managed to pick up the first point, but I was beat near the end of the second point, and then I was out of the race.

By the time of the third race, I had only done about 6 laps of racing. I was going to try and stay in it longer for the last race. They rang the bell right at the beginning of the race, and on the third lap as well, so that meant after the neutral first lap, it was pretty high intensity from the start. A gap formed in front of me, but I managed to help get Erik and Don back into the pack. Unfortunately, by the half-way point, I ran out of energy, at a bad point. Erik had just pulled off the front of the pack and got behind me. He was in need of some rest, but since I was too tired to continue, he was kind of stuck out in the middle of nowhere. So he also pulled out, kind of upset. Don Wells also pulled out of the race a half-lap in front of me.

All in all, I think I had an okay race, especially since I hadn't been racing at the track since the first race in the season.

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