First Blood and Fun on the Track

On Saturday, I received my first dose of "Track Rash". Those nasty scrapes and burns one gets when sharing skin with the surface of a velodrome. The lucky velodrome in question was at Ararat where I was for the Lady Diamond Stakes.

The worst part of this was that I didn't race. Didn't even get on a bicycle.


So how did I manage to take lumps out of my knee, elbow and hip? I was pusher for the Track Princess. This involves holding the bike and rider upright until the gun, then running and pushing them into the race. Simple? Not when you have size 13 feet and the coordination of an epileptic praying mantis.

So boom, down I went, face first onto the concrete. In my defence, I kept pushing right to the deck, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't even get a hand down to break my fall.

As it turned out Endurogirl recovered from the somewhat distracted start to qualify for the final of the 1000m wheel race. :)

All up it was a really great afternoon of racing. Highlights of the afternoon were Apryl Eppinger's bolt from the scratch mark to swamp the frontmarkers in the Ladies Diamond Stakes with 10 metres to spare. She also proceded to win just about everything else as well. Then there was the amazing effort of Miles Olman who one the A grade scratch race by puting a lap on the field. There was also the fun of seeing friends like Wayne Gebert win C grade motor-pace and the C grade scratch race with a daring attack or Emy Huntsman pulling third in the Ladies Diamonds.

Go watch some track racing soon. It's so much fun.

Coming up are:

Sid Patterson Grand Prix and Melbourne Madison - Friday 26/2 @ DISC
Mebourne Cup on Wheels Afternoon Carnival - Saturday 27/2 @ DISC
Revolution 6 & Melbourne Cup on Wheels - Saturday 27/2 @ DISC
Bendigo International Madison - Saturday and Sunday 6-7/3 @ Bendigo

Go watch some really amazing bike racing. It's cheaper than cricket or football and way more exciting.

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