Race report by Toby
SPR had five club members racing on the track for the Winter Grand Prix. The three ladies Anna, Bec and Lisa and two first time GP riders Chris “Daisy” Ainsworth and I fronted up for some hardcore-leg smashing-lung busting racing.
I arrived a little later than I would have liked. By the time I got there the tack was just closed for practice as the junior sprint qualifying rounds were just about to get under way. Dammit. I wasn’t overly stressed about missing the warm-up, I’ve been out at the track 3-4 nights a week for the last few week so I had plenty of laps under my belt. Just condemned myself to warming up on the rollers.
Chris arrived about 10 minutes later and we set up camp in the corner with a good view of the finish line. There was already about 100 riders in the infield all going through their own routines and warm-up rituals, including Anna Meares who has an interesting ritual that involves walking around kicking the air above her head for about 15 minutes. Maybe that’s the secret… air kicking…
The first race of the day for Chris and I would be a 20 lap scratch. Our normal B-Grade field was bolstered by a few A-Grade ring-ins who had been bumped down by the International riders arriving to duke it out in A-Grade. Chris and I had heard that Jack Campbell and Jarred the ‘Motorpace Champion of Tuesday Night’ fame would be riding with us. As such we had already written off our chances. An ass kicking was on the cards – something which Peter – our ever confident Presodento confirmed on Saturday by saying that we were going to get ‘spanked!’ Thanks Pete – cheers. Confidence is high.
So Daisy (not to be referred to as Chris henceforth), and I decided that conservative racing for the scratch was the way to proceed. Just keep our noses clean and stay out of trouble. With that decided we rolled up to the fence for the start. The first 10 laps or so the pace was on pretty high. The group was stretch out with no real jostling for position going on. Fearing my lurking cold was going to kill my at the half way point I was happy to still be with the group. As the race developed I was just focusing on keeping Jack’s wheel in front of me. With 5 laps to go I was starting to feel pretty happy to have legs left. I was feeling ok – and to be honest really surprised not to be in the hurt box. With 3 laps to go the race really played her hand. The pace came off as people became consigned to the idea that was coming down to the sprint. We all gassed off and spread out across the track with 3 to go. I hate these moments of hesitation in the pack. Someone – usually a kid with massive lungs – will jump and go for it and leaving everyone to chase. Hate chasing. So as we moved into the bend I jumped down and gunned it for about 100 meters to get the pace on again. But it was a feigned attack – as if I was going from 3 out – so I looked under the arm as saw Jarred there as we hit the back bend. I swung up and let him take the pace and sat about 4th wheel behind Jack as we came around with two laps to go. Jack went hard with two to go and put himself into the front as we came around for the bell lap. I have a bad habit of leaving my moves to late so with 200m to go I hit it as hard as I could as jumped past Jack in the back straight. At this point I was totally freaking out that I was in front. I was just waiting to get rolled by Theo or Jarred, or even Daisy! But as we rounded the last corner into the finishing straight I was still in the front. I pushed my massive sack of disbelief aside, put my head down and went for the line. To my complete surprise I won. I beat Theo Yates by about half a wheel. I even let out a gasp exasperation such was my shock. WTF? I just won!
After this I spent 15 minutes on the ground trying not to die. Really hurt the lungs bad.
Our next race was the Westral Wheelrace heat. Daisy and I made the final comfortably. And a big thanks here to Zac and my Dad who discharged their pushing duties most faithfully and with a great deal of ‘heave-ho!’. It’s been a decade since my old man pushed me – and I must say it was a totally nostalgic blast from the past. He still gives it some stick!
The Westral Wheelrace has been running for nearly 100 years. Chris and I were both happy to be part of the final. But these things are made for the scratch markers to win in a blaze of glory. That’s why they are so entertaining to watch. Aware of this, and very aware of the talent behind us Daisy and I only had one option – we had to go from the gun and give it everything. Daisy hit it hard from the gun. It took me about half a lap just to get on his wheel. I yelled at him “On!” when I was there and in the next corner he swung up to take his turn. At that point we had about 4 laps to go. I yelled out “lets go!” and laid down the watts. Unfortunately I gave it too much and blew Daisy off my wheel. By the time I got to the bend to take my turn I looked back and he wasn’t there anymore. At this point I only had two choices 1) sit up and wait for Chris and hope that we didn’t get gobbled up by the big boys in the process; 2) Go for it. 3.5 laps solo. I took option 2 and went for it. The last 500m were the longest 500m I have ever ridden. I laid myself out so hard and dug so deep I couldn’t feel my legs. The only keeping me going was the SPR voices from the fence willing me on. I tried as hard as I could but I died a million deaths in the last lap. I held the field off until the last bend when they all came flying past. I was crawling at that point… destroyed. Scratchies got up for the win, and young Theo Yates got up for third which was good to see.
The last race for us was the B-Grade point score. I hate point scores. They are too much like interval training. 20 laps, sprint every 5 – double points on the last sprint. As my fitness is usually at the crap end up the spectrum I usually have one plan for point scores – win the first and then wait and see what happens. We rolled away from the fence and the first thing that happened was I got in a fight with some big unit for Jarred’s wheel. We probably both assumed that the fittest guy in the pack was the best guy to be behind. The big unit in the Katusha kit started trying to push me off the wheel. Now, I’m not usually one for contact on the track, but this guy wasn’t going to give. So I dished out a few sharp elbows to his leg and eventually he yielded the position. Daisy was behind me at this point – probably shitting himself. Anyway, I did when the first sprint, walked it in actually by about 10m. After that I sat in and tried to recover. I got boxed for the second sprint so didn’t really contest. As the bell went for the final sprint I was totally smashed from a tough day of racing, but I was in a good position. I did what I could but couldn’t bring back Theo who had jumped early. He took the 10 points and I got the 6. Overall I got second place on 11 points to Theo who I think got 15 or 16 total. We think Daisy stole some points in the 2nd sprint too.
I will let the girls and Daisy fill in their accounts of the day, but all in all I think it was tops. Daisy survived his first race carnival and we bought home some results. What more could a club ask for?
Thanks to everyone for coming out. Thanks to Brett for the skewer, Yas for the gluing skills, Zac for the rollers, Mark H and Daisy for the training and everyone else at the club. And thanks heaps for all the cheering and yelling. It really makes a difference out there when you are hurting. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.
