Friday Night Racing! Emy's Graduation!

Friday was a good night, and my first racing after a forced rest week off. Emy had her Pee Wee Pedalers graduation. She looked awesome, but was not happy with her not winning - of course, the reason she didn't win was due to safety - she was unwilling to try and pass riders in front of her who were weaving all over the place. I tried to stress to her that it is better to ride safe, than to try and win and have a bad crash. I don't know if it helped. But, as is wonderful with kids, she's over it now! And, she's planning on being on team Vanderkitten, just like Tela Crane, the instructor for the youth classes at Marymoor.

Here's what I sent out to the team about the racing:

It's so nice to have grown our team as much as we have this season. Even though the Cat 3's were split (something like 32-33 Cat 3's showed up, some of whom were the stronger women and a contingent from Canada), we still had two Cucina 3's in the A group (Niels and Jason) and four in the B group (freshly-minted John, recently minted-Jerry, Mark and me). Poor Jason and Niels had the sandbagging Ryan Miller in their group, and ours was pretty much a mixed bag. Chris Hill was representing the elite Cucina's, as usual.

First race for the 3's was a 12-lap Win n' Out, which is usually run with the 1st place winner taking the 9th lap, 2nd on the 10th, etc, until the 4th-whatever on the last lap. However, tonight they went crazy and made the 4th place finisher the winner of the 3rd lap, 3rd place on the 6th lap, etc. to 1st place on the 12th lap, with the 2nd place rider on the 12th lap being 5th place and down. It was confusing the first time they explained it, but I guess it works. It was weird to strategize, as one could simply be content to get 4th and go for it on the 3rd lap. Jerry and I both agreed that we weren't interested in 4th, but maybe 3rd would be OK? We would see...

In the A group, J-dub did a fine job biding his time, but a little too long, in the end, as Ryan Miller took the 1st place win. In the B group, with the advantage of numbers, when John chased the 4th place attack, he ended up out in front, and Jerry and I (mostly Jerry) managed to do some solid blocking to keep John out there long enough to score 3rd in his first race in the Cat 3's! Big bonus - he takes home cash for the first time this season, right John? Jerry and I were both being patient - Mark had an unfortunate mechanical with his new Pista Concept (go Celeste!) and was not in the race. When there was a sprint attack for the 2nd place lap, and the attackers sat up about 4-5 bike lengths off the front, I made the split decision to go long for the win. I did my best not to overcook the jump, knowing there were still 2.5 laps to go, and luckily managed a decent kilo to take the win.

Chris's 1,2's group had a 12 lap tempo that was just insanely fast. It splintered all over the place, and he looked plenty knackered at the finish. It reminded me how glad I am not to be a 2 yet :-)

Next race for the 3's was a Miss n' Out, which is one of my favorite events, Niels's too. Jason had some revenge to take after having been pulled prematurely a week ago. In the A's, both of our speedy Cucinas made the final 5, with Jason taking the win (whew!) and Niels hot on his wheel. It was pretty sweet to watch the two of them flying past a similar duo down in the sprinter's lane. Of note in their group was that Ryan Miller was the first rider pulled, meaning J-dub was looking darn good for omnium.

In the B group, Mark was the first to feel the yank, getting stuck a bit down low. Earlier, he had attacked on the first lap, which made the overall pace of the miss n out the fastest I've been in. Jerry was riding well up near the front, and I was riding stupid near the back. Every lap I had to surge to the front, not get pulled, and then was too tired to commit to making it all the way to the front, so I would return to the back and repeat. My wife was losing her mind watching me do this stunt over and over! Jerry was out with about 8 riders left, and John made it to the final 6 before getting pulled. Somehow my surging kept me alive to the final five, but I knew I was not going to have a sprint. I was pretty happy to manage 4th (and lucky, given my foolish positioning during the race). I can still hear voices from the infield yelling "over the top, Ted, over the top!"

So, in my group, I was now barely in 1st for omnium, as was Jason.

Chris had a Miss n Out as well, and made it to about halfway through the group, give or take, which seemed pretty decent from where I was sitting. I think he said it was crazy fast.

Last race for the 3's was a 30-lap scratch race. Short story for the A's was that Jason took it cleanly, with a hella sprint at the end. I believe he won the A's omnium with no trouble, and I think Niels said he was 5th in the omnium.

B group 30-lap scratch was pretty laid back, actually, at least for the first 10 laps or so. I had promised myself I would wait for the end, since chasing the omnium seemed like the best strategy, rather than trying for a breakaway that might or might not work. But, I broke my promise, as usual, on about 17 laps to go and got in a break with a women from Canada and Nick Brown. The two of them would pull at 25 mph, and I would pull at 28.5 mph, and so I knew it just wasn't going to work. We were caught, so i resigned myself to trying to wait. With about 5 to go, I was near Mark and politely asked him if he would go with 2 laps to go, knowing if I could hold his wheel it would be a stellar lead out. Unfortunately, as he pulled us both up toward the front with 3 to go, he moved left in front of the 2nd line of riders, forgetting I was on his wheel, and leaving me in the wind. I tried to hang out, hoping things would work out anyway, but there was a surge from up track, and when I tried to move forward and attack as well (which concidentally would have put me back on Mark's wheel), a Canadian lad thought the 20 cm in front of my wheel was actually a bike length and nearly took me out. I yelled profusely, which made him move up track, only to try it again. Since this forced me to slow down, I was suddenly behind the surge, and totally out of position right as the bell was ringing. I tried to find space, but there was none, and while I started moving up the outside in turn four I was still screwed. Oh well - at least I don't have any new road rash. Mark did manage to place 5th in the final sprint, so it wasn't a complete loss for the Cucinas in Group B. I think Jerry was inside the top 10.

Last race of the night was a 50-lap scratch for the 1,2's. Chris initally was looking in trouble after getting blown trying to chase a solo move by Jamie Stangland, but then later got in a sweet break that was convincingly chasing a break with Kenny, Grant, and Stangland. Unfortunately, his break companions did not seem as motivated as he was, and later he pulled himself, possibly more out of frustration than tiredness (only Chris can tell us for sure).

So, Cucina did well. No idea what my final omnium placing was, but probably 4th or 5th, so hopefully with that plus Jason & Niels, we still boost ourselves over, or at least closer to Broadmark in the team's ranking. Jason has to be careful - he enjoyed winning $50 for the final race, plus his $20 for the 2nd race - don't want to become a Cat 2 too quickly :-) But then, I hear it is a trend for him to move from Cat 5 to Cat 2 in a season...

Until next week. See some of you at Wednesday's Sprint Mania! Oh also, sounds like there will be a Madison clinic on the 4th (Thursday). Mark and I are in, Jason sounds interested, and hopefully Chris too. They are going to have at least one more madison night for the 1,2's this season, and next year there should be several for the 3's, if we can get enough skilled riders.