I was a very lazy child.  With a relatively large blessing of natural talent in terms of intellect and athletic capability, I tended to make excuses rather than apply myself.  Laziness turned to avoidance and I remember long periods of time off school with faked illness (I even ended up in hospital when I was 12!).

I can still remember the day that I decided to change who I was.  It was in the latter part of year 7 and I was 13.  I decided that I would never make excuses for myself again.  If I hadn’t done the work, I’d face the consequences.  No excuses, no running away.

Over time this “no excuses” mentality bounced around inside and teamed up with my primary inheritance from my father - obsessiveness.  I can still remember becoming a different person in my 14th year as I decided that anything I did I would pursue with a “to the best of my abilities” attitude.  I’d either just not bother, or be obsessive and go all out.  Over the years this has become a core part of who I am and the way I operate.  Generally it is positive, sometimes it’s an issue where moderation and a middle ground is required - this is a skill I’m slowly learning.

Anyhow, enough psycho-analysis - even if it has a point.  The point is simply that when I decided to try track racing, whilst the primary objective is simply to have fun (that’s the moderation part), I can’t help but attack it with a desire to be the best I can be (that’s the obsessive bit) - so far that’s led to a few wins and as you’ll read below, a little pain as well!

I’m Missing Some Skin

With excitement I headed out to the Track last night.  Crafty had organised a teams night whereby every rider was allocated to one of four colour teams.  Races are conducted and winners earn points for their teams.  The night finished with a colour-team Italian Pursuit.

A friend (Alexis - better known as Will from Transitions) was also coming out to give track a go - he raced in Division 5 and had a good night learning the track and got a few placings as well.

First race was a warm up scratch race.  The field rolled out and I found myself in about fifth wheel with 200m to go.  As we entered the final bend before the home straight, I was being pushed down the track.  With more experience I would have held my line and avoided what was to come next.  I’m not very experienced.

I allowed myself to roll off the banking - the problem being that the banking is steep relative to the flat of the infield.  As I came off the banking I didn’t straighten up so the angle of my wheels became extreme and I went down.  It was over in a flash - one minute I’m tearing into the corner at about 45km/h, the next I found myself down on the ground, skidding along the (painted) concrete of the infield, looking back at the riders still coming through and shuffling out of the way as I slid to avoid getting run over.  I was back on my feet in seconds and felt surprisingly ok - adrenalin is a wonderful thing.

Will looked aghast when I came back off the track, “hey man, I thought you said this track racing was safe!”.  I wasn’t doing a very good job of settling his nerves!

Whilst I’ve got some nice bruises and burns on my left knee, hip and elbow crashing was a good experience.  Firstly, there’s nothing like coming home to your wife with a bit of blood and torn clothing, but more importantly, it makes you realise how important it is to learn how to ride the track.  There’s a whole set of skills to learn in an environment where crashing is probably much less of an issue in terms of injury than on the road.  I can already see skills developing that will be useful out on the road.

For now however, showers are a bit of fun and I have to say I feel a little like I played a game of rugby last night!

Keiren - Playing to Strengths

The second race was a keiren.  Our field of about 8 riders rolled out behind the derny (pacing motorbike) being ridden by none other than Sean Eadie.  The speed picked up for about 5 laps until we were clocking 45km/h.  Before the race I had decided to try and place myself up the front and then ride hard once the derny dropped off. 

With 3.5 laps to go the derny pulled off.  I jumped and looked for a gap.  After crashing out in the first race I set about looking for the win.  My strength on the track is an ability to time trial and suffer for an extended period of time.  Off I went and just rode hard.  With a lap to go I still had something in the legs and just buried myself getting to the finish line.  I rolled over the finish line with two others hot on my heels.  Pretty sure I got the win, but by a few inches at best!

One of the great things about the Friday night racing is that the experienced guys will freely share some tips and give advice on how to improve your chances of coming out with a win.  Whilst I got a good result in the keiren, I could easily have got swamped at the line and missed out.  One of the guys explained to me the need to learn to look over your shoulder in the last half lap, know where your competition is and know when to kick.  If someone has closing speed on you on the track, they’ll get you at the line unless you have a massive kick when you jump out of the saddle.  Some more good lessons learned.

Toasted

With the crash and smashing myself in the keiren, I really didn’t have much left for the rest of the night.  There was a great miss’n'out race (everyone rides for a few laps, then the hunt is on and last rider over the line each lap is eliminated until there is just one man ’standing’).  I thought this could be a good race for me, but just didn’t have the legs.  I found myself in trouble early, buried myself to get back into the race, but just had to put too much work in early on and ended up getting spat out the back about half way through.

The Italian pursuit was lots of fun and a great race.  This is a fantastic teams event and demonstrates just how important co-ordination in a team is.  It makes me think back to the days of the blue train that was US Postal - no matter what you thought of the individuals, watching those guys TT on the road in the TDF teams time trial was an awesome spectacle of teamwork.

I race for Northern Sydney, and it was great to see Owen Cooke get up and take the win in his Miss’n'Out race.  He’s a great rider and has often found himself boxed in when he had the legs.  He broke through last night and pulled off an awesome finishing lap to come up, around and over his competition - a really exciting final 100m sprint to the line with Owen the victor - well done mate.

I loved track the first time I raced it.  Each time I race that love grows - hopefully the skin will grow back soon as well!

A Few Video Snippets

I was bringing my video camera home from work yesterday, so pulled it out at the track and took a few snippets of video.  They’re far from great quality, but they’ll give you a little sense of the racing.  Friends who read this and know Will - look out for him at about 1:23 in.

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