Track: Saturday racing, November 6

Angus Lyons, star student, speed demon, and cadet track racing journalist, writes:

Saturday brought sunny skies and the first of BSCC's 2010-2011 Saturday Racing Series. As an unknown quantity it was fantastic to see the support from the senior trackies, added to by the appearance of Stu Vaughn, recent World Masters Track Champion, who drove up to Melbourne for a pleasant afternoon of racing. None were disappointed. The match sprints were particularly hard fought, all but one going down to the 3rd heat.

Excitingly, there were three "Come and Try" riders - all seniors! Ray Isaac, Ben Morrison and Brett Martin all took to the track, and by the end of the afternoon Ben was feeling good enough to have a crack at the elimination race.

All are looking forward to the next Saturday afternoon session in 2 weeks.

Results

20 lap Scratch
1st Stu Vaughn
2nd Scott Townsend
3rd Liam White
4th Angus Lyons
5th Matt Smith

20 lap Motorpace
1st Liam White
2nd Stu Vaughn
3rd Scott Townsend
4th Matt Smith

Elimination
1st Steve Vaughn
2nd Scott Townsend
3rd Angus Lyons

Match Sprints
Stu Vaughn defeated Scott Townsend 2-1
Liam White defeated Matt Smith 2-1
Angus Lyons defeated Greg Nunn 2-1
Scott Bilney defeated Paul Amos 3-0

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Doug Garley, the Hard Rider, is organizing the first of several Saturday afternoon BSCC track racing sessions on Saturday November 6. 

Are you curious about track racing?  Interested, but not available on Thursday evenings?  This is for you!  There will be some proper racing on Saturday, but if you've never ridden a fixed-gear bike, or never ridden on a velodrome, there will also be a decent chunk of time in the program for you to ride around and see if you like it.  Doug, and a number of the club's other experienced track riders - people like Damien Keirl, Greg Nunn, Rob Doyle, Scott Townsend - will be on hand to help you set up a bike and have a go.  Thanks to Roger's ingenuity in fund-raising, the club has a host of track bikes for hire, so no problem if you don't have one.  Bring your pedals from your road bike, and your measurements (bottom bracket to saddle top, horizontal offset of saddle nose behind BB, saddle nose to top of bars), and we'll set you up.

If you watched the Commonwealth Games track racing (wasn't that just the Australian track cycling and swimming championships, moved to Delhi ...? - ed.), you'll know that there's more to track racing than just match sprint racing between gigantic blokes with lots of fast-twitch muscle.   In other words, there's a lot of fun to be had in club track racing, even if you're not Damien, Charles, Matt Smith and Scott - just as you don't need to climb like Jay or Rhys, or time trial like Andrew or Grant, to have fun and be competitive in club road races.  And as we've said before, if nothing else, racing on the track does wonders for your road riding: bike handling, sharing the pace efficiently at speed, pedaling efficiency, and above all, dealing with high intensity. 

For those already bitten by the track bug, here's something to aspire to.  Doug has plans to run the first six-day race in Australia for decades, here in Ballarat, early in the new year.  The event, tentatively named the Sebastopol Six, will be run as six sessions over a number of consecutive Saturdays.  The format will generally be endurance track racing - points races, maybe some motor-pacing, miss'n'out, and so on.  Riders will accumulate overall points at each session, and the winner will be the one with the most points at the end.  The details will become clearer over the coming month or so - but the point is: get your racing legs going!  This will be something you don't want to miss. If you're curious about the unique world of the sixes, Wikipedia has a decent introduction.  Edmond Hood at Pez has occasional articles (in English) that really get inside the six world, like this one. 

On Saturday November 6, the events start at 2 PM.  No need to enter beforehand: just show up.  Details of the racing part of the program will be revealed, but be sure that Doug will come up with some novel races, probably with a Belgian flavor.  (In case you didn't know, Doug lived in Belgium for several years in the 1980s and raced at the very top level there, with cycling legends such as Phil Anderson, Greg LeMond and Sean Kelly.)  And, in true six-day tradition, expect a Euro techno soundtrack.  Be there!

(Earlier we mistakenly referred to this Saturday, implying Sat Oct 30. The races are on Saturday Nov 6! Just as well, because it poured on Saturday Oct. 30. Sorry for any confusion - ed.)

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