Hello from a very comfortable RV traveling at a smooth 65mph down highway 80 in lovely green Indiana! Track nationals are now over, and two new red, white, and blue jerseys are already back in NorCal! Here is what happened in days two, three, and four of track nationals.
Day 2:
For the 17-18 boys, the points race was on the schedule. This race was probably the best suited race for me. However, I knew it was going to be extremely tough, but it was nationals. If it wasn’t there would have been a problem and who likes an easy race anyways? In the qualifier I planned on doing as little work needed to qualify, no point in killing your self if you do not need to just to qualify for a harder race. A group of two rolled off the front so only the top ten from the pack qualified. My chances were getting smaller, but not too small. I was able to bridge up to them with out totally killing myself. If the break stuck I would automatically qualify. Another guy bridged and we eventually lapped the field. A little much? Yes, but the pack just sat up and did not care, which made sense it was only the qualifier. I was able to help Ryan Gadow (San Jose Bicycle Club) score points and qualify. In the final I hoped to repeat my points race at nationals last year and roll off the front and win the race, but last year my race was much shorter and this year I raced like the extra distance did not make a difference. The race was 78 laps with sprints every 6. This meant the chances of going off the front were high because of the closeness of the sprints and the amount. However, in my multiply attempts to stretch the rubber band of the field I did pay attention to how much I was stretching mine. Right around half way through the race I found out how much I stretched my rubber band and I snapped it! Not the best thing to find out but that is racing. I got dropped and eventually pulled, but that is all apart of racing unfortunately and you have to be able to win gracefully, but more importantly LOSE GRACEFULLY. Daniel Fahrinha on the other hand rode a great race and ended up 2nd place, missing 1st place by three points and beating the 3rd place rider by over 20 points! The same day Matt Valencia was in full hunting mood for omnium points in his scratch race, the second out of three events for him, and boy is he a darn good omnium points hunter! Matt won his race putting him only two points behind the leader of his omnium!
Day 3:
Scratch race and team pursuit was on the schedule for me. Both of the races I was very excited for. The team pursuit I was doing with Ben Barthel (5th in the individual pursuit) Neil Shepherd (4th in the individual pursuit) Matt Lipsocom (2nd in the individual pursuit) and myself (6th in the individual pursuit). With high hopes of taking down the “dream team” National Team with the alien, Texas creature Lawson Craddock, Ryan Eastman, Nate Geoffrion, and Benny Swedberg. We knew it would be tough, but we knew it was not impossible. Thankfully we went off after the national team. After seeing them go are hope got higher and higher. In the second half of their pursuit their team just blew apart. Nate and Benny were gassed and only Ryan and Lawson were together. They ended up doing a 3:42:something. This was a lot more reasonable than we were expecting. However, we were too worried about dropping each other that we went .5 to .7 seconds slower than we were supposed to each lap giving us a final time of 3:45:something. Although we were happy that we stayed together, we were frustrated that we did not go as fast as we could. We finished 3rd, with the Young Medalist Team winning with a time of 3:39:something. Then in the scratch race final I planned on trying to get away, but also I was going to make sure I did not kill myself before the finish of the race. With only 30 laps in the race it was going be short and fast. Myself and a couple of other tried to get away multiply times but nothing was getting away. I attacked with four to go but was quickly pulled back in and countered by a young medalist rider who almost stayed away but when Matt Baranoski started to sprint, nothing was faster. He finished first with Chazz Martin 2nd and the Young Medalist rider 3rd. Matt also had his points race in which he raced a very aggressive race and placed second to Daniel Parks and won the omnium by one point!! Ruth Winder (Peanut Butter & Co. 2012) did not stop attacking in her scratch race and eventually stayed away to a very well deserved victory!
Day 4:
No racing for Matt or myself, but Daniel Fahrinha participated in the Madison with Colt Peterson and boy was it an exciting race. Daniel and Colt both made the race very hard. The race came down to the last sprint and Daniel and Colt needed to win it but the sprinters still had some gas left and Benny Swedberg and Jesse Marans ended up winning the race and Daniel and Colt came in 3rd.
Over all it was a fun, exciting, educational, and hard track nationals.
Thanks for reading,
--Andrew
No comments:
Post a Comment