Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 Group B Motor Paced Scratch and Points Race.

This was the final race in the Tuesday “Derney for the masses” series http://ncnca.org/sites/default/files/03/08/2011%20-%2012:20pm/tues_mar15-april5.pdf

I race last Tuesday and even though I thought it might hurt my Swanton TT effort in 48 hours I decided to give it go.

The weather was about 60 degrees with a light to moderate breeze. There was a good turnout with 18 in our B field (20 is about the max I feel safe racing with).

Rode my usual 51X15 gear.

Scratch Race 20 laps (usual race format- person who crosses the line first at the end is the winner). I waited for the first move in front of the motorcycle and followed. I took a few half lap pulls with the others pushing the pace then fell to the back of the break and noticed that it did not have good cohesion. As our group got pulled back with about 3 laps to go I attacked over the top got a gap and was able to hold it for the win. As I came around the final corner I could see that Dennis was able to gap everyone else in the sprint for 2^nd. Vlada, who just moved up from the Cs, had a photo finish for 3^rd or 4^th so the Trip was able to virtually sweep the podium.

Points Race 30 laps with sprints every 6 laps (1^st place 5 points, 2^nd 3 pts, 3^rd 2 pts, 4^th 1 pt). My pre-race plan was to try to get off the front with Vlada and Dennis. As usual the race did not go as planned. I attacked right at the gun and looked back and saw that Dennis and Vlada were not with me. I could quickly see that this guy from Pen Velo was very strong. He was easily able to overpower me for 1^st place in the first two sprints but he was using a lot of energy opening a large gap for those two sprints. I was able to take the third sprint as we lapped the field. On the 4^th sprint I was second again to the Pen Velo dude. I wasn’t feeling confident going into the final sprint but gave it everything from the front with 1 lap to go. As I came to the line, I swung up track to go around some lapped traffic otherwise this move can be grounds for disqualification and probably kept me from being overtaken. I initially didn’t think I had won since I knew that if the Pen Velo guy was 2^nd or 3^rd he would still have won but he later told me he didn’t place in the final sprint.

Really enjoy racing with Dennis and Vlada. Next week probably need to race the As, winning is good for the ego but don’t want to be a bagger.